Josef Heicke (1811-61) studied at the Academy in Vienna, and travelled in the Middle East, Italy, and Hungary. He painted genre scenes, landscapes, and animals, and produced lithographs and etchings, including adaptations of works by Friedrich Gauermann.

A shepherd stands, leaning on his crook, with his herd of cows gathered around him on a grassy mound; he wears a buff-coloured overcoat and feathered cap and smokes a pipe. Harvesters are at work in a field full of stooks of corn on the right.