[3] Both paintings depict a group of peasants riding inside a simple wagon through a rural landscape with a collection of nearby animals.

The painting is set in the area around Gainsborough's adopted city of Bath, where he lived for 14 years of his life.

The Gainsborough scholar Hugh Besley sees landscape, people, and animals as more unified in the later work.

[4] The earlier painting is also far more intimate to the artist as the women in the wagon are portraits of Gainsborough's own daughters, Mary and Margaret.

The second painting, done at the height of Gainsborough's fame, was sold to the Prince of Wales, later to become King George IV.