This painting was made in about 1830, when Købke was developing his mature style, and shows the bakery in the Kastel, which is a castle in Copenhagen that served as a prison. The three figures in the foreground are Købke's father (who owned the bakery), Major J.J. Krohn, and the slave Sergeant Sporch (the prisoners were described as 'slaves'). The scene was one with which Købke was very familiar as he lived within the castle compound from 1817 to 1834. In the later 1830s his family moved out of Copenhagen and he concentrated on depicting more rural scenes. Subsequent visits to Germany and Italy broadened the scope of his subject matter still further.