The Shepherds (French - Les Bergers) is a c. 1717 painting by Antoine Watteau, now in the Schloss Charlottenburg in Berlin.

Several details are directly inspired by the work of Peter Paul Rubens - the musician, his neighbour, the shepherd embracing the woman next to him and the dog in the foreground.

[2] The affected character of the scene is heightened by the presence of a real shepherd, whose sheep graze in the far right background, almost hidden by bushes.

It takes away from truth to please the imagination; but it is not difficult to make [the viewer] content; it often only needs a half-truth.

[5] The figures' harmony with nature in Watteau's work was a convention in an aristocratic society which emulated an idealised pastoral state in the gardens of Versailles.