After years of apprenticeship and traveling through Europe together with artists from the Leibl Circle, Karl Hagemeister returned to his birthplace Werder on the Havel in 1884, where he stayed until the end of his life. Around 1885 he increasingly dealt with impressionistic concepts of perception and representation and "expanded his choice of motifs and his color palette, which became lighter and more delicate" (Hendrikje Warmt).

During this time, Hagemeister visited the area of ??the picturesque village of Ferch on the Schwielowsee, where his friend Carl Schuch also joined him at times to work with him in the seclusion of the rural idyll. "The study of the effects of light and air in the great outdoors became the credo of his work ...