A painter best-known for peasant genre scenes rendered in a Neoclassical style, Emile Auguste Hublin was born and raised in Angers, the historic capital of the northwestern French province of Anjou. In the late 1840s or early 1850s, he moved to Paris, where he trained with François Edouard Picot, a student of Jacques-Louis David. (Picot also taught Alexandre Cabanel, Jean-Jacques Henner, and Isidore Pils.)

Hublin depicted his rural subjects in regional attire often revealing signs of wear. He thus demonstrated his accord with the Realism of Courbet and Millet. At the same time, he gave his figures the solidity of Classical sculpture, ennobling and preserving them for posterity before their world became obsolete.