

The present painting was Berne-Bellecour's entry to the 1864 Paris Salon. It combines his interest in showing the topographical landscape of Normandy, together with a scene he would have witnessed daily in the French countryside, that of a lone shepherdess as she guarded her flock. Almost a decade later, similar landscapes by Berne-Bellecour would be populated with a different cast of characters, French soldiers in their tricolor uniforms engaged in battle.