Camille Pissarro was one of the leading figures of Impressionism. Unlike the other Impressionists, who mostly focused on bustling Paris and its fashionable suburbs in their work, Pissarro explored rural life. This richly detailed scene is close in theme and spirit to the works of Jean-François Millet, the painter of dignified peasant subjects of the previous generation. At the same time, Pissarro’s broad brushwork reveals his growing concern with painterly structure and physicality of form—concerns he shared with Paul Cézanne, his close friend and frequent painting companion at the time.