Lot Essay
RELATED WORKS
Compositional sketch for Return from the Fields, charcoal (or, more likely, crayon noir) 27 x 33cm. stamped with initials lower left, last known in the sale of Jean Dollfus, Hôtel Drouot, Paris, March 4, 1912, no. 84.
Compositional sketch for Return from the Fields, charcoal (or more lÿikely crayon noir) 28 x 26cm., stamped with initials lower left, last known in the sale of Marie Louis (Mrs. Robert W.) Paterson, Parke-Bernet, New York, March 18-19, no. 8.
Study of a donkey, crayon noir on paper, 19 x 17cm., stamped with initials lower right, last known with Hector Brame, Paris, 1938, no. 19 in the exhibition J.F. Millet, Dessinateur.
Throughout his career, Millet frequently returned to favored themes, studying a subject anew, then altering or recomposing it to fit the artistic or social concerns that occupied his attention at the moment. Return from the Fields, dating to 1873, the last productive year of Millet's life, is the final version of a subject that had held his attention since his earliest explorations of the countryside around Barbizon at the end of the 1840s.
Return from the Fields brings together the interests in monumental figure compositions and landscape painting that dominated Millet's last decade. Where the earliest versions of the theme had emphasized details of costume and locale, in Return from the Fields Millet simplified his figural subject and landscape setting to their most basic components. Drawing his peasant man and woman into a single, dramatically silhouetted unit strengthened the suggestion of a family relationship between the figures and gave their stately passage home an aura of timelessness and solemnity. Dropping the horizon to the lowest quarter of the composition not only gave grandeur to the couple and their animals; it also offered Millet a vast sweep of sky in which to
explore the evanescent colors of the fading day.
The mythological or anecdotal works of Millet's youth often displayed a striking freedom of brushwork and an uncommon sensitivity to color nuance, but for the more realistic subject matter that characterized his oeuvre throughout the 1850s and early 1860s, Millet ususally preferred a more restrained craftsmanship. The wispy, assertive paint touches that give movement to the sky of Return from the Fields
or the heavy, fluid dabs of paint that shape the sheep and the muddy path reflect Millet's return to an explicity painterly technique during the last years of his life. In works such as Return from the Fields, his deeply-felt sympathy for the peasants among whom he lived was balanced against a new-found passion for landscape painting.
Compositional sketch for Return from the Fields, charcoal (or, more likely, crayon noir) 27 x 33cm. stamped with initials lower left, last known in the sale of Jean Dollfus, Hôtel Drouot, Paris, March 4, 1912, no. 84.
Compositional sketch for Return from the Fields, charcoal (or more lÿikely crayon noir) 28 x 26cm., stamped with initials lower left, last known in the sale of Marie Louis (Mrs. Robert W.) Paterson, Parke-Bernet, New York, March 18-19, no. 8.
Study of a donkey, crayon noir on paper, 19 x 17cm., stamped with initials lower right, last known with Hector Brame, Paris, 1938, no. 19 in the exhibition J.F. Millet, Dessinateur.
Throughout his career, Millet frequently returned to favored themes, studying a subject anew, then altering or recomposing it to fit the artistic or social concerns that occupied his attention at the moment. Return from the Fields, dating to 1873, the last productive year of Millet's life, is the final version of a subject that had held his attention since his earliest explorations of the countryside around Barbizon at the end of the 1840s.
Return from the Fields brings together the interests in monumental figure compositions and landscape painting that dominated Millet's last decade. Where the earliest versions of the theme had emphasized details of costume and locale, in Return from the Fields Millet simplified his figural subject and landscape setting to their most basic components. Drawing his peasant man and woman into a single, dramatically silhouetted unit strengthened the suggestion of a family relationship between the figures and gave their stately passage home an aura of timelessness and solemnity. Dropping the horizon to the lowest quarter of the composition not only gave grandeur to the couple and their animals; it also offered Millet a vast sweep of sky in which to
explore the evanescent colors of the fading day.
The mythological or anecdotal works of Millet's youth often displayed a striking freedom of brushwork and an uncommon sensitivity to color nuance, but for the more realistic subject matter that characterized his oeuvre throughout the 1850s and early 1860s, Millet ususally preferred a more restrained craftsmanship. The wispy, assertive paint touches that give movement to the sky of Return from the Fields
or the heavy, fluid dabs of paint that shape the sheep and the muddy path reflect Millet's return to an explicity painterly technique during the last years of his life. In works such as Return from the Fields, his deeply-felt sympathy for the peasants among whom he lived was balanced against a new-found passion for landscape painting.