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Lot Essay
Jean-François Millet drew Jeune bergère avec son troupeau au bord d'une route during the critical period of 1848-1851, as he increasingly turned his art away from the historical and romantic subjects of his early career and committed himself to the subject matter of rural life.
The use of charcoal or a very dry black crayon, as well as several stylistic mannerisms in the handling of the foliage and the distant riders date the persent work to the beginning of Millet's production of finished drawings for private sale. The setting of an old, tree-lined roadway might correspond either to the farmlands north of Paris where Millet often wandered during the late 1840's, or to the Barbizon area, where he moved in 1849. But several motifs, such as the bored shepherdess nodding while her animals meander, the sheep that lose their individual forms as they huddle together or stretch down in to a culvert to graze, and the shadowy half-light of a wodded glade that merges both figures and animals in to their surroundings, establish themes that would hold Millet's interest throughout his Barbizon career. Millet expanded the present drawing into an unusual grisalle painting now in the Musée d'Orsay.
We are grateful to Alexandra Murphy for preparing this catalogue note.
The use of charcoal or a very dry black crayon, as well as several stylistic mannerisms in the handling of the foliage and the distant riders date the persent work to the beginning of Millet's production of finished drawings for private sale. The setting of an old, tree-lined roadway might correspond either to the farmlands north of Paris where Millet often wandered during the late 1840's, or to the Barbizon area, where he moved in 1849. But several motifs, such as the bored shepherdess nodding while her animals meander, the sheep that lose their individual forms as they huddle together or stretch down in to a culvert to graze, and the shadowy half-light of a wodded glade that merges both figures and animals in to their surroundings, establish themes that would hold Millet's interest throughout his Barbizon career. Millet expanded the present drawing into an unusual grisalle painting now in the Musée d'Orsay.
We are grateful to Alexandra Murphy for preparing this catalogue note.