Elsa Schwarze von Arnim was born in the Uckermark and received her first drawing lessons from 1904. In Züsedom she was taught by the painter Maria Preußner. In 1906 she went to Berlin and studied in various studios until 1914: she was a pupil of Franz Skarbina, Heinrich Linde-Walther, Karl Wendel and the etcher Änni Löwenstein. From 1921 she went on study trips to Rome, Salzburg, Venice, Positano, Ascona and Travemünde, until she finally took a studio in Paris for two years from 1929. From there she undertook further trips to Holland and southern France. In the end, she spent the Second World War in Norway and moved to Bielefeld in 1946. From 1951 until the end of her life, Darmstadt became her adopted home. In her art actually influenced by Impressionism, the picture with the circus wagons falls outside her usual mode of representation. In an expressionist manner, Schwarze von Arnim presents the view over the tangle of roofs of a circus tent city. Tent roofs alternate with caravan roofs, all of which seem to be connected by electric cables. Colourful, the image conveys the lively and chaotic impression that the arrival of a circus turns the city into a joyful state of emergency.