Toepffer began his artistic career as an illustrator and caricature was to remain an important element of his output. After three years studying engraving and watercolour in Paris, he returns to Geneva and accompanies Pierre-Louis De la Rive travelling around Lake Geneva making pleine air studies from nature. Inspired by Dutch 17th Century painters such as David Teniers and French contemporaries such as Nicolas-AntoineTaunay, Toepffer came to specialize in small genre scenes capturing local Genevan customs as well as more ambitious compositions such as the present work, which shows the Promenade de la Treille above the Parc des Bastions densely populated by the varied members of society, from the shoe-shiner to the young soldiers in uniform and elegantly dressed citizens enjoying a walk in the afternoon light. The Promenade de la Treille’s name comes from the trellises which lined the walls of the nearby private gardens of rue de l’Hôtel de Ville.