A river landscape at dawn with a shepherdess leading a flock of sheep and cows across a bridge with a shepherd climbing out of a stream; and A river landscape at dusk with a woman sorting laundry by the riverbank, a seated shepherd and a donkey carrying a load

Jean-Baptiste Pillement traveled extensively during his lifetime, leaving his native home of Lyon at a young age to train under Jean-Baptiste Oudry at the Beauvais tapestry factory. His facility for colorful landscapes and chinoiserie scenes in the ornamental Rococo style afforded him success even as a young man, and he set his sites farther afield, burnishing his reputation with commissions in Lisbon, London, Vienna, and Warsaw. His landscapes bear traces of the influence of the seventeenth-century Dutch tradition, stemming from the English penchant for sun drenched scenes and romantic depictions of nature.

This pair of paintings dates to 1790, when Pillement had returned to France and produced several such invented scenes, often complementary pairs, depicting bucolic scenes at dawn and dusk. The pair is characteristic of Pillement, with their fanciful and imagined landscapes, suffused with light and an exquisite use of color.