Kilian Zoll was a painter of peasant life and together with other artists, went to Düsseldorf to train, as the genre had low status at the Academy in Stockholm. This self-portrait is intimate in both size and character and once belonged to Uno Angerstein, who probably received it as a gift from the artist. Angerstein, a man of many talents, was himself active as an artist and was important for genre painters. He supported them in various ways, including by letting them stay on his estate.