'Shepherd and Shepherdess' is typical of the series of sensual, mythologically inspired pictures produced by Van der Werff from the mid-1680s to the mid-1690s. It was painted for the Rotterdam collector Adriaen Paets, and appeared, together with a companion piece, in Paets’s sale in 1713. The picture’s elegant subject matter and smooth technique attracted the attention of Baron Schönborn, who acquired it and hung it in his audience chamber at Schloss Weissenstein, Pommersfelden, where it was described as ‘a magical and very good Van der Werff’ in 1719. Despite the relative unpopularity of Van der Werff’s works in the nineteenth century, the picture’s eminent provenance, decorative erotic subject matter and technical virtuosity were well calculated to appeal to the tastes of the 4th Marquess of Hertford who paid 20,000 francs (about £800) for it at the sale of Khalil Bey’s collection in 1868.