In this moralising composition, a country couple bearing gifts of chickens and eggs beseech their city-dwelling landlady for financial relief. Adorned with silk, velvet, fur and pearls, she seems poised between emotion and indifference to the couple’s plight. To the landlady’s right, a table is strewn with decorative ribbons, more pearls, a silver trinket and a mirror symbolising her vanity. This poignant scene is about to be disrupted by a small dog, which has run in from the right, determined to bark at and possibly eat the chickens that have been brought as compensation.