In the 1400s Italian artists began drawing on blue paper. Made with rags dyed with indigo, blue paper was used by artists seeking a greater tonal range in their depictions of light and atmosphere than was possible to achieve with white or cream-hued paper. As artists and papermakers developed methods to create a range of colored sheets, these papers were employed for the creation of prints, drawings, and later photographs, and laid the foundation for the use of other paper products and non-paper materials in artistic production. In this print the blue paper also captures the atmospheric effects of the night sky on a snowy evening.