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Lot Essay
This rapidly executed, yet detailed, drawing is a study for the seated figure in Millet's oil Paysannes au repos, circa 1850 (sold Bonhams, Paris, 22 June 2023, lot 35). Only a handful of studies for the painting are known, including a sketch of the seated figures' head in a private collection, and a compositional study Peasant Women Resting featuring both of the figures, at The Box (formerly City Art Gallery), Plymouth (R. L. Herbert, et al., Jean-François Millet, exh. cat., Grand Palais, Paris, 1975-1976, p. 81, no. 49, ill.).
Born into a farming family in Gruchy, Normandy, Millet remained deeply connected to the rural labourers and shepherds and shepherdesses who became the central subjects of his œuvre. The art critic Octave Mirbeau (1848-1917) described Millet in 1885 as a ‘wonderful poet of nature, who has shown the moral grandeur of the “small people”’ (La France, 9 April 1885; quoted in R. Cotentin et al., Millet, exh. cat., Lille, Palais des Beaux-Arts, 2018, p. 30).
Born into a farming family in Gruchy, Normandy, Millet remained deeply connected to the rural labourers and shepherds and shepherdesses who became the central subjects of his œuvre. The art critic Octave Mirbeau (1848-1917) described Millet in 1885 as a ‘wonderful poet of nature, who has shown the moral grandeur of the “small people”’ (La France, 9 April 1885; quoted in R. Cotentin et al., Millet, exh. cat., Lille, Palais des Beaux-Arts, 2018, p. 30).