Carl Larsson created "Tyst protest / Carl Larsson som Napoleon" during his stay in Paris in 1881, and regarding the work, Ulwa Neergaard recounts the following: "Of this pastel, it is said that Doctor Axel Munthe and one of his friends, an ambassador, visited Carl Larsson in his studio in Paris while he was completing this painting. Both were delighted with the painting and wanted to acquire it. Carl Larsson had no objections. To determine which of the two would become the fortunate owner, they tossed a coin. The ambassador won, and the painting accompanied him on his various postings around the world."

The artist's time in the French capital was turbulent. He was poor and lived in a cheap studio apartment in Montmartre, which during the winter months, according to a letter he wrote to August Strindberg, was terribly cold. He was also rejected at the Salon in 1881, which dealt a heavy blow to his self-confidence. In "Tyst protest / Carl Larsson som Napoleon", he portrays himself as Napoleon with a grim expression.

What is Carl Larsson protesting against in the work? The piece can be interpreted as a resistance against the Royal Academy of Fine Arts, an institution that many young artists at the time considered outdated and conservative. From the 1870s onwards, young artists increasingly chose to pursue their studies abroad in France, unlike their older colleagues who had trained in Germany. At the heart of the new style was plein air painting, where artists left their studios to paint outdoors. New products, such as pre-mixed paint in tubes, enabled artists to leave their studios and move freely through the city and nature with their tools.

In France, Swedish young artists mobilised in the 1880s in a collective resistance against the Royal Academy of Fine Arts in Sweden, whose views and practices on art were deemed stagnant and outdated. They came to be known as the Opponents, and among the central figures was Carl Larsson. In this revolutionary spirit of the times, one can understand how Napoleon became an apt symbol.