This painting of a young nude man sitting in a landscape is called an academy. This exercise was one of the founding principles of the instruction dispensed to artists since the Renaissance. It taught them how to master the anatomy of the human body, which was studied nude to capture the exact pose before being dressed according to the requirements of the composition being prepared.

Hippolyte Flandrin, who studied in Jean Auguste Dominique Ingres' studio and at the Paris Fine Arts School, was heir to this classical tradition. He won the Prix de Rome in 1832, which gave him the opportunity to spend five years in Rome at the Villa Medici, paid for by the French government. In return, the rules stated that he had to send a painting, or several paintings, to the Academy of Fine Arts every year, which had to adhere to strict codes so that his progress could be assessed. This is the academy figure that was ordered to accompany Dante, led by Virgil, consoles the Souls of the Envious, also held in the museum collection nowadays, the work he sent back during his second year in Italy.

Several preparatory studies for this painting are known and shed light on the way the artist works. Flandrin used a young Italian boy as a model, giving him a baton to hold, the only accessory helping identify him as a shepherd from antique times. The poetic mood of the artwork is imbued with the spirit of Virgil's Bucolics. The landscape was painted in collaboration with his younger brother Paul, a specialist in the genre with whom he was used to working.