Both Boucher and Couperin worked in the French court, Couperin for Louis XIV and Boucher for Louis XV. Love was a popular theme for artworks created during this, the rococo, period. Boucher's painting is typical in that it's not about vegetables at all, but about a budding romance between a kitchen maid and farm boy, observed sympathetically by the young maid's companion.

Couperin's "Coquetry" comes from a larger work, a set of variations called Les folies Françaises (The French Follies), ou les Dominos. The word "domino" means a cloak and mask, and Couperin gives each variation a domino of a different color–white for virginity, green for hope, red for ardor, with "coquetry" in a series of different colors reflected by quick changes in the meter.