The Swedish financier and art collector Ernest Thiel (1859-1947) was a friend and patron of Carl Larsson. He commissioned several portraits of family members (and himself), including this one of his son, Tage Thiel, painted in 1915. Theil bequeathed his Stockholm house and his entire collection to the nation - it is now the Thielska Galleriet on Djurgården, and there is a room devoted to works by Carl Larsson.