Ramasseurs de varech

Details

Jean-François Millet (1814-1875)
Ramasseurs de varech
signed 'J. F. Millet' (lower right)
gouache and charcoal on paper
7 7/8 x 12 5/8in. (20 x 32cm.)
Executed in Normandy in the summer of 1854

Provenance

Galerie Georges Petit, Paris, circa 1881.
James Staats Forbes, London.

Literature

A. Sensier and P. Mantz, La Vie et l'Oeuvre de J. F. Millet, Paris, 1881 (illustrated p. 9).
J. Cartwright, 'The Drawings of Jean-François Millet in the Collection of Mr. James Staats Forbes, Part II', in Burlington Magazine, June 1905, p. 122 (illustrated p. 137).
L. Bénédite, The Drawings of Jean-François Millet, London, 1906 (illustrated pl. 50).
E. Moreau-Nélaton, Millet raconté par lui-même, Paris, 1921, vol. II, p. 14 (illustrated fig. 103).

Exhibited

London, The Leicester Galleries, The Staats Forbes Collection of One Hundred Drawings by Jean François Millet, 1906, no. 61.

Special notice

VAT rate of 5% is payable on hammer price plus buyer's premium.

Lot Essay

Millet drew Ramasseurs de varech (The Seaweed Gatherers) during a summer-long return to his family home in Normandy, during 1854. The scene depicts peasant farmers raking in seaweed loosened from the ocean depths by a passing storm. The valuable bounty was carried up the steeply rising cliffs by horses and then spread as fertiliser across fields and pasture lands. Millet was familiar with the task from his childwood; his summer stay of 1854 offered him an opportunity to study the stressful poses of the farmers, who had to brace themselves against the churning waves as they pushed their long, heavy rakes as far into the sea as possible.

Ramasseurs de varech is a highly finished study for the oil of the same date and title at the Musée National des Beaux-Arts, Algiers.

We are grateful to Dr Alexandra Murphy for her assistance in cataloguing the present work.

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