This painting depicts Henner's elder sister Marie-Anne turning milk cream into butter (baratter). Henner talks about this work in a letter to Charles Goutzwiller, his drawing teacher who would later become his very great friend:
"It's a peasant interior. A young woman is busy making butter, a grandmother sits behind the big stove warming herself, and a kid who has just put on his sack to go to school is still waiting to be given a slice of toast"
Charles Goutzwiller (letter dated December 12, 1856)
