A shepherd with his flock in the woods

At the age of 16, Dutch realist painter Mauve was apprenticed to the animal painter Pieter Frederik van Os. Mauve was to become a leading member of the Hague school. Animals, especially sheep, became his preferred theme. Mauve's best known paintings depict peasants working in the fields. His paintings of flocks of sheep were especially popular with American patrons, to the extent that a price differential developed between scenes of "sheep coming" and "sheep going".