Van der Helst also collaborated with the animal painter Jan Baptist Weenix on the "Shepherd boy with sheep and goats". Bartholomeus van der Helst painted the shepherd boy in the painting. Van der Helst scratched his signature in the wet paint on the boy's collar while Weenix did the same in the wet paint at the upper right. It is believed the painting was intended to be hung over a large fireplace. This probably explains the contrived perspective with the somewhat too large sheep placed right on the edge in the foreground.