A Seville-born painter, Chaves Ortiz trained at the city’s School of Fine Arts and mostly created works featuring bullfighting and genre scenes.

The influence of Murillo and the imprint of Romanticism encouraged him to focus on a genre style, though permeated with a realistic viewpoint, particularly in his pieces related to the world of bullfighting, materialised either in works directly depicting a corrida (with matadors, picadors and bulls) or indirectly remitting to it through representations of countryside scenes with herdsmen, horses and cattle.

The work in hand is a

 tableautin 

(small tableau) were miniature works depicting genre, romantic or military scenes in the taste of the 18^th century. Generally highly refined and detailed, these works were highly popular throughout the 19^th century. Introduced from France, Mariano Fortuny was the greatest exponent of this subgenre in Spain.

, the name given to small oil paintings and boards minutely depicting genres scenes that decorated bourgeois homes mostly in France and Spain in the mid 19^th century. Their small format made them easy to move, an advantage given the great demand for these pieces abroad.

To achieve the maximum possible realism in his paintings, the artist used to make countless sketches from life which he would later transfer to the definitive work.

The theme of bulls in the countryside, being driven or rounded up by herdsmen, was also used by another painter from Seville, Joaquín Díez (documented in 1856-1882), while the treatment of the landscape shows the influence of his master Manuel Barrón (1814-1884). In these paintings, the action usually takes place in a peaceful setting, with the artist focusing primarily on the study of the animals.