The setting in this work is a North Italian one, but there are conscious echoes of Dutch seventeenth-century landscape painting. The pool or river in the foreground is surrounded by trees and in the shade at the left herds of cows and goats wade into the water, recalling motifs found in the work of Nicolaes Berchem and Karel du Jardin. In the middle of the water a man leads a white horse carrying a woman, followed by a figure on a brown horse; in the right foreground another man leans against a rock. Pictures by Berchem belonged to Consul Smith in Venice and could have been known to Marco Ricci, quite apart from any he saw on his travels outside Italy.