Daniel Adolphe Roberts Jones (1806-74) was born in Brussels. He was a pupil of Eugène Verboeckhoven, but never quite matched his teacher's mastery in depicting animals and landscapes. He travelled throughout Britain. He regularly worked with the landscape painter Kuytenbrouwer, and was known to have collaborated with Louis Gallait. In 1845 he won a silver medal at the Brussels Salon.

In this tribute to Paulus Potter (1625-54), Jones presents a stout brown and white bitch and a dog standing guard over their litter of puppies in a yard beside a thatched barn; in the foreground, a black hen and her chicks peck at some ears of corn lying on the ground. Sheep graze in the background. The message is the same as Potter's Young Thief of 1649 (RCIN 400527): Nature teaches us that all animals (like humans) cherish and protect their own.