The little shepherd with his puppy housed in the National Archaeological Museum in Athens was found in Asia Minor. The statue is also called "the refugee". A plaster cast of it is also exhibited in the Archaeological Museum of Basel.

The statuette was found in 1922 during excavations by the Greek archaeologist Kourouniotis at the archaeological site of the Bouleuterion or Gerontikon of Nyssa. Due to the Asia Minor Catastrophe of the Greco-Turkish War of 1919–1922, the statuette was transported the same year by Kourouniotis to Athens who handed it over to the Archaeological Museum. Since then it also bears the name "the refugee".

The statuette is a Roman copy of the 2nd century, of an earlier original dating back to the early Hellenistic times. It is made of marble and has a height of 63 cm. It shows a small standing shepherd boy lovingly holding a little dog in his arms. The child is wearing a short hooded cape and his legs are bare.

The motif of the little child is very popular and occurs frequently in Hellenistic and Roman times. Similar statues were used as a vow or tama by wealthy families for the recovery of their child, or as in this case, as a decorative element with a theme of nature and the countryside.

The second version is more likely, since the parents of the depicted little shepherd boy probably would not have had the financial ability to do tama, or on the contrary, if some wealthy shepherds did this tama, they would not have depicted their little child so poor. This little statuette is probably a sample of the real living conditions of the poor people. The depicted child may be a slave or a dependent of some needy lord of ancient times.

The artistic style of the presented subject is known from the beginning of the Hellenistic period. The bucolic poet Theocritos wrote many idyllic verses that subsequently inspired many contemporary and later artists, such as the poet Virgil (Bucolic), or other painters and sculptors. Bucolic artefacts were popular and decorated many houses, mansions and gardens.