Léon Germain Pelouse was a largely self-taught painter born in Pierrelaye, France. His work was most often said to descend from that of Corot and Daubigny, but was from the beginning unique in its depiction of an often stark, obsessively detailed nature largely devoid of human figures. At the time of his death at age 52 in Paris, Pelouse was "considered one of the great landscape painters of his time."

The Barbizon school of painters were part of an art movement toward Realism in art, which arose in the context of the dominant Romantic Movement of the time. The Barbizon school was active roughly from 1830 through 1870. It takes its name from the village of Barbizon, France, on the edge of the Forest of Fontainebleau, where many of the artists gathered. Most of their works were landscape painting, but several of them also painted landscapes with farmworkers, and genre scenes of village life. Some of the most prominent features of this school are its tonal qualities, color, loose brushwork, and softness of form.