Part of a large Italian artist family recently settled in Munich, Domenico Quaglio was active in Germany for his entire career. Like his father, he initially made his living as a theater scenery painter for the Munich court, and he was even named court painter for architectural scenery by age 21. Leaving Munich to make topographical paintings of sites throughout the country, he was also an adherent of lithography, a relatively new printmaking technique invented in Munich in 1798.

Quaglio traveled throughout Central Europe, recording images of churches and castles as prints. Amidst the ruins in this scene are the tombstones of Saint Genevieve and her husband, Siegfried, Count Palatine of the Rhine. Genevieve was wrongly accused of adultery and forced to live in a forest for several years. She survived through her faith until her husband happened across her while hunting. After she convinced Siegfried of her innocence, she returned to Andernach. She had the Church of Our Lady built in the forest where she had stayed in order to show her gratitude to God for keeping her safe.