Van de Velde often reused drawings of animals which he had made from life. The goat also appears in 'A Goat and a Kid' (also in the National Gallery), and in other works, as does the cow which appears in 'Jacob departing from Laban' (London, Wallace Collection) and in at least three versions of the mythological subject of Mercury and Argus.
Both animals can also be found in his 'Mercury and Battus' of 1671, (Prague, Národní Galerie).
