This painting by Bremontier is in the tradition of the Barbizon School, the great French landscape school of the mid-19th century. Within that tradition, there were artists who specialized in painting flocks of animals often accompanied by a shepherd. Charles Emile Jacques and Constant Troyon were the foremost animal artists of this period, and this work is very much inspired by their subject matter. The pastoral tranquility of the depiction of the French countryside is reinforced by the treatment of shadow and light.