In August 1868 Winslow Homer, then working as a free-lance illustrator, visited the White Mountains of New Hampshire. As early as the 1820s, American artists used the White Mountains as a setting for landscape paintings. Unlike Thomas Cole (1802-1848) and Asher Durand (1796-1886), who focused on the unspoiled wilderness, Homer turned his attention to other tourists. He made this oil sketch as a study for the horse in a large oil painting The Bridal Path, White Mountains (1868; Sterling and Francine Clark Art Institute, Williamstown, Massachusetts).