The first drawings which can be associated with Der Schreiber, eine Feder schneidend are in his sketchbooks of 1850 and 1851-2. A painting with the same title is listed as no. 108 in Spitzweg's sales records (Siegfried Wichmann, Carl Spitzweg. Kunst, Kosten und Konflikte, Frankfurt-am-Main and Berlin, 1992) and specifies that the painting was sold to the Princess of Auersperg in Prague in 1853. This entry does not necessarily refer to our painting; however, it confirms Spitzweg's interest in this theme during this period. The dating of our painting to around 1850 is further supported by the delicate, linear outline of the figure and objects, as well as the dissolution of the brushstrokes. The monogram, which is more attributable to the 1870s, typically would have been applied in retrospect. A further version of this theme, datable to 1855-60 and painted in a more sketchy manner, is in the Neue Pinakothek, Munich, inv. no. 8516 (S. Wichmann in the Catalogue of the Exhibition, Carl Spitzweg, Munich, 1985, cat. no. 375 (illus.))

Spitzweg, having qualified as a pharmacist at the University of Munich, only took up painting full time in 1833, after receiving an inheritance which subsequently allowed him to be financially independent. By the mid-1830s, he had developed the thematic composition of a single figure as the main subject, standing in profile in the lower right corner and looking to his left. Der Naturforscher in den Tropen of circa 1835 (private collection) (Wichmann, op. cit., Munich, 1985, cat. no. 20) is an early successful representative of this group. By the late 1840s, to the early 1850s, this composition was a typical feature of Spitzweg's work and is displayed in such works as Morgenkonzert, circa 1850 (Kunsthaus, Zurich) (Wichmann, op. cit., cat. no. 178), as well as in a series of paintings entitled Bücherwurm of circa 1850 (Wichmann, op. cit., cat. nos. 366 and 368).