Nils Kreuger's art often revolves around the relationship between humans and animals. From the Parisian scenes of the 1880s, where newly established boulevards in the city centre or suburbs are depicted with horse-drawn carriages driven by coachmen, to the motifs executed in Varberg featuring ploughing farmers from Halland, humans and animals are portrayed in close connection with each other. Gradually, however, Kreuger seems to increasingly abandon humans in his motifs and instead seeks a landscape solely populated by animals in complete freedom.

Kreuger found this environment on Öland, where he favoured motifs depicting horses, cows, and sheep roaming freely on the Alvaret or in the vicinity of Borgholm. Kreuger himself described his newly found paradise in a letter to his fellow artist and friend Karl Nordström: "Meanwhile, it is very beautiful here and then it may well be a bit dirty at the farmers'. The village is so picturesque, beautifully situated on the slope towards the Kalmar Strait, so one sees the straw roofs of the barns against the strait's blue waters and against the greening clouds fading in the distance...".