Bernhard Fiedler (1816-1904) was a student at the Academy in Berlin; he also studied under the painter Johann Karl Jacob Gerst. He made study visits to Italy, Dalmatia and Egypt, and became a member of the Academy of Venice. His known works include the decoration of the Miramare Castle, Trieste, and paintings of street scenes in Cairo.

A snow-covered mountain peak rises above an alpine town nestling amidst wooded hills; below the walls of the town other houses are dotted about the hillside, and in the middle distance men and women can be seen harvesting corn; on the right, a man walking up a path carries a bundle. Alpine scenery was often cited as a place where the immanence of God might be most keenly felt. There is here a deliberate rhyme between the upward-pointing shapes of the way-side crucifix, the church spires in the middle ground and the mountain peaks in the distance.