Provenance: Edgar Collin. Bruun Rasmussen auction 617, 1995 no. 723–2.

At the age of 16, Fritz Petzholdt (1805–1833) was apprenticed to the painter J. M. Baruël (1809–1862), and he was subsequently admitted to the modelling school in 1824. Eventhough Petzholdt was determined to train as a landscape painter, he still had to complete the compulsory training at the Life Class at the Royal Academy of Fine Arts before he could specialise in landscape painting, including tutelage by C. W. Eckersberg (1783–1853).

Financed by his father, Petzholdt embarked on a longer journey in 1829, starting in Hamburg and Harz. In the spring of 1830, the journey continued towards Italy, and in October he arrived in Rome. He spent six months getting to know Rome, but when spring arrived, he - along with other Danish artists in Rome - began to explore the city's surroundings and the mountains. Through his sketchbooks, you can follow him along Via Appia and further into The Roman Campagna, where this drawing depicting Petzholdt hunting, drawn by Ernst Meyer, is from. Meyer, who lived in Italy for most of his life, captured Petzholdt in 1836, during his last year in Italy. Petzholdt died shortly afterwards in 1838, aged just 33, and most of his artistic production, which is not very large, is from his time in Italy.