A barn interior with a man sleeping and a woman milking a cow in the background

Following a successful career as a Leiden glass painter, Pieter Potter, the father of the famed animal painter Paulus Potter, turned his attention in the late 1620s to easel painting. This beautifully preserved early painting is characteristic of the artist's work in the 1630s in which figures and volumetric still life elements, the latter of which recall contemporary works by his townsman Jan Davidsz. de Heem, are arranged within simple interiors.