Curtis_O_Baer_2010

34. Jean-François Millet (French, 1814 – 1875 )

Return from the Fields verso: Cowherd Leaning on a Staff and Studies of Cows ca. 1850

Black chalk on blue paper 5 3 ⁄ 4 x 9 5 ⁄ 8 inches ( 14 . 5 x 24 . 5 cm.) Estate sale stamp lower right corner recto: Lugt 1460

provenance Vente Millet, Paris, May 10 – 11 , 1875 ; The Drawing Shop, New York, as of 1963 ; Collection Curtis.O. Baer literature New York, The Drawing Shop , The Non-Dissenters , 1963 , no. 37 ; Atlanta, 1985 , cat no. 75 , p. 133 . During the 1850’s and 60’s, three shepherds roamed the Chailly plain with their large flocks and Millet encountered them frequently on his twilight walks. Wrapped in bulky cloaks, their majestic forms fascinated Millet and they became one of his most repeated subjects . — Susan Fleming in “The Boston Patrons of Jean François Millet,” quoted in Jean-Francois Millet by Alexandra Murphy, Museum of Fine Arts, Boston, exhibition catalogue, 1984 , page xiv. The years around 1850 were especially important in the development of Millet’s career. In 1849 he moved to Barbizon where he would spend the rest of his life, and where his spontaneous sketches done of the local shepherds, workmen, and peasants would inspire his greatest paintings throughout the next decade. The turn to natural man as the ideal in the face of the rapidly encroaching industrial age is symbolized by Millet’s turn from portraiture and history to the fields and forests of Barbizon. This drawing is datable by the paper type and heavy black chalk which typifies the artist’s work of this period. The recto depicts a herdsman guiding his sheep and sug gests the landscape on the outskirts of Paris. The verso, however, is clearly typical of

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