Swanevelt was a Dutch landscape painter who, after a stay in Italy, lived in Paris for over ten years serving as a court painter for the king of France. As a painer who influenced the early work of Claude Lorrain, he played an essential role in the development of the ideal landscape painting. This work, while based on an actual scene, is full of divers motifs that are associated with a pastoral representation. (Source: The Digital Gallery. 1999-2006)