Woman pouring water into milk cans

The theme of copper canes used for the transportation of milk in the farm, evokes the artist's childhood in the Cotentin region of Normandy, in the surroundings of his hometown Gruchy. Having lived with his family in Barbizon, near Paris, since 1849, Millet returned to Normandy in the summer of 1854 for a seminal visit during which he recorded his childhood memories in the form of drawings. This scene of everyday peasant life takes part in this particular creative process, along with three further drawings: a graphite study in the Museum of Fine Arts, Boston (inv. 76.433), a rapidly sketched figure study for the peasant woman in the Art Institute of Chicago (inv. 1954.1345) and a fine pastel replica in reverse of the present drawing in the Musée d'Orsay (inv. RF 3969; replica of a lost pastel from the Vever collection and known from a glass plate dated 1862; see L. Delteil, Le Peintre-graveur illustré, Paris, 1906, I. no. 28, ill.).
The attribution was confirmed by Alexandra Murphy when the drawing was rediscovered and offered for sale at Christie's, New York in 1994.