Frits Thaulow specialized in painting scenes of wintry landscapes and flowing rivers. His style merged the pure colors and plein air (outdoors) technique of French Impressionism with his early training as a realist marine painter. In January 1895, he spent time in Petit-Appeville, a small town in northern France, and produced five different versions of this scene. Ruth Faure, an art writer working in the 1890s and Thaulow’s good friend, noted that no one “equals him in the delineation of wintry weather, wastes of snow, ice bound waters, sullen skies, lowering in menace over scenes swept by bitter blasts or shuddering with frosts.”

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