Otto Bache (1839-1927) studied under Wilhelm Marstrand at the Academy in Copenhagen, and travelled to Italy and France between 1866 and 1868. He became a member of the Academy in 1872, a professor in 1887, and was appointed director in 1905. Initially acclaimed as a portrait painter, he developed a gift for animal motifs, gradually turning to genre subjects and history painting.

A pack of hounds on the scent of a stag is followed up a densely wooded slope by huntsmen and women at a gallop; a rider in the foreground urges his horse over a fallen tree trunk, which is being jumped by three other riders; two woodcutters view the scene from the right.