The little gardener, signed “f. Boucher /1767” on a stone on the right, expresses the ideal of female beauty of the moment, depicted in the guise of a seductive shepherdess, with a porcelain complexion and graceful forms, apparently naive and close to nature, but dressed in a vaporous dress fashionable silk; she is represented after having picked the flowers in the basket (hence the title of the work), while looking to her left, perhaps attracted by her beloved hidden in the woods. The work is a typical example of the genre of gallant pastorals or fêtes champetrês which express the desire for light-heartedness of the French royal court, whose frivolity attracted criticism from Denis Diderot who asked to "get rid of these damned pastorals", but which are good the climate of growing secularization and the taste of the century, fully embodied by Boucher in this little masterpiece.