This black and red chalk drawing is related to Dupré's painting La Mare aux Chênes, ca. 1850-1855, now in the Musée d'Orsay, Paris (RF 1831; Aubrun 234). Dupré was a member of the Barbizon school of painters, as evidenced by this ephemeral scene featuring a herd of cows grazing under a cluster of oak trees. The painting was previously owned by the renowned collector of Barbizon landscapes, Laurent-Richard (1811-1866). A print after Dupré's painting was made by Gustave Greux (1838-1919) to accompany Laurent-Richard's posthumous estate sale held in Paris at Hôtel Drouot, 7 April 1873. An impression of Greux's print accompanied this sheet when it entered the Morgan's collection (2009.122a).
The drawing records the general composition of the painting, which is particularly renowned for its treatment of the sky and the reflections on the water, effects less evident in this broadly adumbrated sheet than in the finished painting.