In the late nineteenth century, Vollon's paintings maintained popularity, and thus many of his works are in private collections today.

French writer Alexandre Dumas, fils and fellow American painter William Merritt Chase, for example, collected his various artworks.

[3] Vollon was a member of the Académie des Beaux-Arts, and his works were present at the Paris Salon for over thirty years, together with other realist French painters like Charles-François Daubigny, Alexandre-Gabriel Decamps, Jean-Baptiste-Camille Corot, Henri Fantin-Latour and Eugène Boudin, but Vollon is not quite as celebrated or remembered today as his other French Realist colleagues such as Corot and Fantin-Latour.

Typically, after milking, the cream is to be collected, churned and the butter lumps are kneaded by hand or worked with a spatula to get rid of the moisture from it, because the high amounts of buttermilk would shorten its storage life.

Kitchen scenes, food preparation, and depiction of everyday objects were a usual subject for still lifes in Vollon's time.