The Expressionist painting was completed in 1903–04 and is housed at the Munch Museum in Oslo.

The painting was done at a difficult time for Munch: a commission for a portrait in Hamburg (of a Senator Holthusen, the father in law of Munch's patron Max Linde) had come to naught because of disagreements.

As a result, Munch suffered anxieties, which he attempted to manage with alcohol.

"Ironic, sentimentally unholy", the painting is interpreted as a commentary on both Linde's upper-class household (where Munch was staying at the time) and Munch's own "pietistic home background".

[1] Like other paintings of the period, it shows Munch's association with Fauvism.