The shepherdess

The painting shows a barefoot young shepherdess seated on a rocky ground, gazing softly at the viewer. She wears a white headscarf, a dark bodice, and a blue skirt, and holds weaving or twine in her hands as a long cloak falls over her shoulders. A pastoral landscape with distant hills and grazing sheep recedes behind her, executed in Bouguereau's polished French Academic style with meticulous detail and smooth, luminous skin tones.