Axel Jungstedt travelled to France to study at one of the private academies, Académie Julien. This work was painted in Switzerland. It shares its format and narrative content with historical painting. But it depicts the work at a quarry during an ordinary day and is painted in the modern plein-air style. This feature makes it interesting from an art history point of view in the same way as Gustave Courbet’s revolutionary Stonebreakers from 1850.