From a rich and cultured background, Harpignies studied art and music in Valenciennes before working in the family industries of iron smelting and sugar refining. In his spare time, the young Harpignies exercised his talents as an amateur draughtsman, looking for inspiration to the great satirical lithographers of the day, but, in 1838, he was exposed to the variety and beauty of the French countryside during a tour with a family friend. The former introduced the young man to Jean-Alexis Achard (1807-1884), a landscape painter and etcher. Leaving behind his business career, Harpignies went to study with him in Paris, and produced his first group of work in a realistic style at Crémieu in 1847. This period of early artistic endeavour was interrupted by the Revolution of 1848, which forced Harpignies to return home. In 1849, he travelled to Italy by way of Germany. The grandeur and picturesque nature of the Italian landscape around Rome and Naples, as well as the quality of the light, were to have an enduring effect on Harpignies's art. Like others of his generation, he was particularly enchanted by Capri. The second dominating influence on Harpignies was Camille Corot (1796-1875), who encouraged the artist by purchasing his work after his return to France in 1852.

Harpignies exhibited at the Salon for the first time in 1853 with a view of Capri and two landscapes near Valenciennes, and continued to do so regularly until 1912. His work there met with praise from the critics and was the object of important acquisitions by the French government.  Although Harpignies painted still-lives, interiors and figure subjects from time to time, he was primarily a painter of landscapes and city views, especially of Paris. He travelled widely, but his name is associated with the environs of the Loire and its tributaries - the Nièvre and the Allier - in central France. The possessor of an immediately recognizable personal style which was much loved by his contemporaries in Europe and America, Harpignies, whose long life spanned two generations, brought the subject-matter and visual philosophy of Corot and the Barbizon painters into the Twentieth Century.

Charmingly animated, this Autumnal scene depicts a gang of apple thieves being chased away from an orchard by a sword waving gendarme. One of the boys has fallen spread-eagled on the ground, another hides behind a tree trunk, a tiny boy is dragged along to safety perhaps by his elder brother and a stubborn thief runs off with a whole branch scattering leaves as he runs. The light squaring across the entire sheet suggests that the watercolour must have been made as preparation for a larger scale painting, possibly a project for a private commission of which it has not been possible to find record; this preparatory work was then given as a gift with the addition of the artist’s dedication `homage a Mademoiselle Rose Marieau’ .