Vallet trained at the School of Industrial Arts and the School of Fine Arts in Geneva. A reluctant pupil, he abandoned his studies a year before graduating, preferring to travel. After Germany, he visited Paris and the Louvre, and also went to Italy. In 1908, he discovered the Valais whose landscapes changed his perception of painting. After staying in Hérémence, he lived temporarily in Ayent. In 1911, he left for the village of Savièse, together with his wife, Marguerite Gilliard, daughter of the painter Eugène Gilliard and also an artist. The couple finally settled in Vercorin, where Vallet set up his studio. Vallet’s main inspiration came from the Valais, and much of his work is an attempt to render its landscapes and its inhabitants, their customs and activities with delicacy and poetry.

This painting, also sometimes entitled “Butter merchants”, depicts a scene from daily life at a market in Geneva. The lady on the left of the composition is the artist’s maternal grandmother, Rosalie Bouvier. This painting was the subject of a caricature published in the Geneva satirical magazine Guguss‘ in the winter of 1897-98.