The seeds for the Helene Wurlitzer Foundation of New Mexico, established in 1954, were planted with Wurlitzer's sponsorship of Earl Stroh. She began buying Stroh's work in 1948, the year she provided him with a residence on her property, the first artist's residency offered by Wurlitzer. Over the next several years Stroh regularly occupied one of the casitas on Wurlitzer's property known as House #5; she later had a studio added to House #5 for her protégé. Additionally, she gave Stroh a stipend to cover his housing expenses while he studied art in New York and Paris in the early 1950s.

This work was painted in France during one of these trips. Stroh was studying printmaking in Paris and was also working on behalf of his patron, Helene Wurlitzer, to find artists of interest for her artist's residency program in Taos.