This subject derives from an episode in Boccaccio's Decameron (5:1), in which Cimon, the coarse son of a nobleman of Cyprus, falls in love with the maiden Iphigenia and finally marries her after a series of misfortunes. The effects of his love transform him into an elegant and cultured gentleman. Here, the artist has chosen to depict the moment when Cimon, clad in peasant clothing, first sets eyes on Iphigenia as she lies asleep beside a fountain in a woodland setting.

This moral allegory was popular with seventeenth-century Dutch painters, and van Mieris treated it on several occasions. Several further versions of this composition are known, including another of similar dimensions dated 1713 which was formerly on the Parisian art market. A further example on panel and in a slightly smaller format was successively in the collections of the Comte Du Barry, the Prince de Conti and Nicolaes Beaujon, in each instance erroneously described as a depiction of Simon of Athens with the nymphs of Diana.