Hans Andersen Brendekilde began his artistic training as a stonemason: he first studied sculpture and then painting at the Academy in Copenhagen, specialising in landscape and genre painting. During his numerous trips abroad, including to France, Italy, Egypt and Syria, he became acquainted with modern movements in painting, the bright and sensual colours of the Orientalists and the lively style of the Impressionists. In 1889/90 and again in 1894/95, Brendekilde visited Germany, where interest in Scandinavian painting was just beginning to awaken in the art metropolises of Berlin and Munich. After the turn of the century, his bright, light-flooded depictions of Danish country life were shown at many exhibitions (Paris 1889, Munich 1891, Chicago 1893, London 1907).