Here Boucher depicts the preparation of an evening meal at a small farmstead and uses it to portray the joys of love and the family in a rustic setting. In so doing, he picks up on the pictorial tradition of rural scenes and paintings of cattle from the seventeenth century; the young women already hint at the artist’s later pastoral paintings. This painting was one of a decorative cycle of four works, which also includes ‘Rest at a Well’ (facing, at the other end of the room).