In the catalogue for an auction sale at Christie's in 2017, it was described as "Perhaps among the most important paintings by the renowned animalier Rosa Bonheur remaining in private hands" and "considered by the artist herself to be one of her masterpieces".

It may be based on the artist's observations of wildlife near the Château de By, on the edge of the forest of Fontainebleau, as well as an animal that she kept in her own menagerie.

It may also take inspiration from Edwin Landseer's 1851 painting The Monarch of the Glen It was sold by Bonheur to Ernest Gambart in 1878.

He displayed the painting at his home in Nice, and then exhibited it in Antwerp in 1879, in London in 1881, and at the World's Columbian Exposition in Chicago in 1893.

It passed through the hands of the art dealers Arthur Tooth & Sons in London and M. Knoedler & Co in New York, and was acquired by Charles M. Schwab in 1907.