The Danish Erik (1847–1923) and the Norwegian Amalie (née Alver, 1846–1905) Skram were both writers in the time of the modern breakthrough, and they were married in the years 1884–1899.

While Erik went more or less into oblivion in posterity, Amalie has been emphasised as the modern breakthrough's most significant female writer, who through her writings, among other things, challenged the bourgeois family and criticized the prevailing sexual morality of the time and its oppression of women.

Georg Achen and his wife Ane Cathrine became very close friends with Erik and Amalie Skram. In 1890, Achen planned to paint a double portrait of Erik and Amalie, and in the summer of that year, the Skram couple lived with the Achen family in their summer cottage in Hornbæk, where Achen made sketches of them. He tackled the double portrait in earnest in the autumn, when they were all back home in Copenhagen. But the painting was never realized. Erik and Amalie found it difficult to find time to model, and Achen destroyed his preliminary work. In a letter to them both from about January 1891, Achen writes (in Danish): “Today I cut my picture of you in pieces straight through the heads so now you are murdered in beauty – The reason that is told to everyone is that I was dissatisfied with the picture - different light - too difficult task etc – what we come up with – but the real reason is Amalie's letter this morning, it is perhaps my fault that I have hidden from you and from everyone, by the way, even Ane Kathrine, that I have suffered endlessly this summer and now these few days I have been working on the picture, because there was still fuss on your part with the posing, I had to go and pry and beg for the sessions; I am not angry with you at all. You must not misunderstand it; but when Amalie suggested in her letter that she should only come twice a week [...] then I went straight up and cut the picture away from me – it was a great great relief for me, but I think it was necessary because otherwise I would have become sick from agitation in the coming endless hours of waiting.” (cited from Janet Garton, ”Det maa være Trolddom ved det, Menneskene kalder kunst” in Årbog / Museum Østjylland, 2017, pp. 132–133).

From Achen's hand, there exists a portrait of Erik Skram dated 90 and a portrait of Amalie Skram, which Achen painted approx. 1890. Both are close-ups in a larger format of Erik and Amalie, respectively, from the same scene as in the present painting. These were sold at Bruun Rasmussen auction 42, 2004 no. 2016 (Amalie) and no. 2018 (Erik). These two and the present painting must be assumed to be studies for the actual double portrait.

The present painting is probably the only painting that exists today of the Skram couple together executed by Georg Achen.