The drawing comes from a stick-on album with drawings that was probably acquired by James Archibald Stuart-Wortley-Mackenzie 1st Baron Wharncliffe immediately after Labruzzi's death. He was on the Grand Tour from October 1817 to June 1818, and his wife reported the acquisition in a letter dated March 1818. The drawings and watercolours in the album were intended as models rather than for sale. They are difficult to date. The expressive tree probably stood on the shores of Lake Nemi - at least a drawing of a similar tree by Richard Wilson from the mid-18th century has survived.