The romantic painter Willem Bodeman was one of the first students of B.C. Koekkoek around 1826 and only three years younger than his teacher. Together the artists made study trips through Germany and Belgium and along the Rhine, Ahr and Maas. After he followed Koekkoek to Kleve, great forest and winter landscapes were created. In Brussels, where Bodeman went to live in 1837, he often enlisted the help of the famous Belgian animal painter Eugène Verboeckhoven to furnish his landscapes with animals. That is also the case here. Collaboration of artists on a painting, in which each painter contributed from his own specialty, was not unusual until well into the 19th century.