Herdsman with cows and sheep outside a cottage at the edge of a wood

John Hayes compares the present drawing with J. Hayes, op.cit., no. 158. He draws a comparison with the rococo treatment of the branches on the right and the modelling of the bushy foliage. Withered or pollarded trees lent themselves readily to rococo treatment and Gainsborough would make sketches from nature and combine elements in his compositions (see lot 118 for a study from nature of a fallen tree). During the 1750s Gainsborough often crammed a lot into one composition. Hayes concludes that 'Generally speaking, he did not regard his figures and animals as much more than accents and this was an attitude, derived largely from his study of Dutch landscape' (see J. Hayes, op.cit., 1971, p. 48).

The peasant boy returns in a number of compositions for example the oil painting Open Landscape with Peasant Boy and Cows, Milkmaid crossing a Stile, Woodcutters and Church Tower among trees, painted between 1755 and 1757 (Hayes, op.cit., 1971, no. 62, illustrated p. 398).