This autumn landscape was one of fourteen views Charles Willson Peale painted in 1816 and 1817 of his Germantown farm and its surrounding neighborhood outside Philadelphia. Initially placed in the back parlor of his Germantown home, this work was one of eight Peale chose for display at the Pennsylvania Academy of the Fine Arts in 1817. In February 1822, three months after he moved back to Philadelphia, he accessioned this picture, along with fourteen other landscapes, into his Philadelphia Museum, where they were prominently displayed.

Peale represented changing seasons and weather conditions with the help of a color palette and instructions for painting landscapes shared with him by his son, Rembrandt. In this work, a path at the lower right leads past a large tree with bright foliage, a mill house, and large golden poplars that direct the eye to a distant horizon and luminous sky.

Peale’s Germantown views were part of the developing interest in representing the American landscape in the early 1800s.