The African scene referred to in the title is an invention by the artist, but amazingly all the animals shown in the painting at one time lived in the parkland surrounding Owston Hall, which still stands to the north of Doncaster near Askern. The painting was commissioned by Philip Davies Cooke of Owston Hall in 1828. In the following year, it was exhibited at the Royal Academy Summer Exhibition in London. It was then returned to Owston, where it hung in the library until it was sold along with the contents of the house in 1926. In that same year it entered the collection of Doncaster Museum Service. The painting is a celebration of the livestock that Cooke had obtained to live in the park around his residence, and includes a buffalo (to the left-hand side of the painting), red, white and yellow domesticated zebu cattle (originating in Asia but exported to Africa) and zebra.