The word ‘miniature’ describes a technique of painting in watercolour rather than the size of a painting. Miniature painting developed as a separate art in the 16th century and in Britain it became predominantly a portrait art. In mainland Europe, however, the miniature technique was used not only for portraits, but also for small delicate genre scenes, reflecting the roots of miniature painting in the art of the illuminated manuscript. In France the taste for such small painted scenes continued even when ivory replaced vellum as the support for miniature painting at the beginning of the 18th century. Miniatures such as this pastoral scene could have been painted to be set in partitions on the sides of small decorative boxes.

Pierre Antoine Baudouin’s work shows the elaborate and decorative qualities associated with the Rococo style. He specialised in painting miniatures, often showing scenes of pastoral love, although these tended to take on an air of decadence that sparked outrage in some contemporaries. He was both a pupil and the son-in-law of the renowned French Rococo artist François Boucher (1703–70), on whose work this miniature is based.