Following in the footsteps of Danish Golden Age painters such as Christoffer Wilhelm Eckersberg (1783–1853), and two years before the journey of Vilhelm Hammershøi (1864–1916), Carl Holsøe travelled to Italy as part of his artistic training. Awarded a study grant to travel to Rome in 1897, Holsøe captured sites of ruined antiquity, such as the Temple of Castor and Pollux in the Roman Forum. Rendering the Italian light and its effect on various ruins would give him a fresh outlook to his approach of Northern Light upon his return to Denmark, where he swapped landscapes such as these for domestic interior scenes. Very few of the of his works from this time are known to remain.