Pissarro moved with his family to the village of Eragny in 1884 and was to remain there for the rest of his life, longer than in any other location. Eragny and the surrounding countryside was therefore to provide Pissarro with his single most painted subject matter, depicting over the years the passage of time, the changing seasons and varying weather conditions. It could be argued that the Eragny picture provides the background for Pissarro's first excursion into the concept of series pictures which was later to manifest itself in the urban landscapes of Paris, Rouen and Dieppe.

The full impressionist palette has been used in the present picture in order to extract the maximum of colour from the frozen landscape. Early morning colours characterise the painting with strong browns and purples indicating what little shadow the day has to offer. The view depicted is one of the least typical of the Eragny period. Pissarro usually favoured looking out from his upper floor studio across the river towards Bazincourt but in all probability the fog lying heavily on the landscape obscured this view and he turned instead to the shorter perspective across his own farmyard towards the poplar trees half obscured in the mist.