A peasant girl kneels while milking a cow, the soles of her dirty feet turned towards the viewer. At her side is a shepherd boy leaning on his staff. The motif had a long tradition in Netherlandish art and its erotic subtext was well known. Yet, the refined naturalism of Dujardin's picture, its subdued atmosphere and sensitive rendering of space and light, seems closer to the idyllic landscapes of the pastoral.