Victor Forssell often took his subject matter from Gotland or Stockholm. His pictures from the capital often show the poorer quarters. The artist’s renderings of these settings are sometimes compared to August Strindberg’s writings set in Stockholm. The main idea behind these paintings was not, however, to paint a picture of street life but to portray the typical character of the townscape, as in this painting from the tollgate at Ladugårdslandet (Östermalm) on an early spring day in 1892.