A pastoral scene: in the centre foreground a woman, seen from the back, is milking a goat. To her left a seated boy is drinking from a bowl and on the right an old man in red crouches before a basket with a sheep, a cow and a laden white horse. Two further figures are visible in the middle ground, before a landscape background with houses.

Painted with delicacy and bravura, the work appears to be a deliberate pastiche of Jacopo Bassano’s semi-pastoral works such as the ‘Journey of Jacob’ (RCIN 402928). The artist is thought to be a very able Italian who was remote in training and possibly also in time from the Bassano workshop.

The picture has a frame of the type associated with the Consul Smith Collection, suggesting that it might be the painting attributed to Sebastiano Ricci acquired by George III from Consul Smith: ‘Animals in the stile of Bassan’, although the dimensions then quoted do not match those of the present picture.