Rosa Bonheur made the painting by commission of the French government for 3000 francs; it was shown in the Salon in 1849, where it won her a First Medal. N. D'Anvers repeats an apparently well-known story, that it was inspired by the opening scene of George Sand's novel "La Mare au Diable" (1846), which features oxen ploughing a landscape with the author's commentary, "a noble subject for a painter". The comparison with Sand is amplified in an article in the July 1899 edition of "The Literary Digest", which referred to the painting as a "pictorial translation of the novel". Initially intended for the museum in Lyon, it was instead exhibited in the Musée du Luxembourg in Paris and was a featured exhibit at the 1889 World Fair. The painting was moved to the Louvre and afterward to the Musée d'Orsay. She made a number of copies, one of which is in the John and Mable Ringling Museum of Art.