In the late 1870s, Carl Larsson considered himself to be a history painter. However, that did not prevent him from making a number of nature studies in the French plein-air style. Larsson visited Barbizon together with his close friend Hjalmar Sandberg, who, unlike Larsson, focused exclusively on landscape painting. In picture after picture we can see how similarly Larsson and Sandberg portrayed the terrain – rugged and unkempt with thistles – indicating that they worked together and supported each other artistically in the early days of their time in France.