Jean-François Millet

born Gruchy, near Cherbourg (Manche) 1814, died Barbizon 1875

Millet took lessons in Cherbourg from the portrait painter Bon Dumouchel (1807–1846) and the history painter Lucien-Théophile Langlois (1803–1845). A municipal stipend from Cherbourg underwrote his study in Paris in the studio of Paul Delaroche (1797–1856) in 1837, but Cherbourg withdrew Millet's stipend when he left that studio following his failure in the Prix de Rome competition.

Millet spent the 1840s painting portraits and genre and pastoral scenes. In 1847 he met the collector Alfred Sensier, who became the artist's most constant supporter and, later, biographer.

Millet used the money from a government commission to flee the cholera epidemic of 1849; he settled in Barbizon, a village in the Fontainebleau Forest.  There he concentrated on the agricultural themes that brought him fame.

In Barbizon he was closely associated with Théodore Rousseau, Constant Troyon, and Narcisse-Virgile Diaz de la Peña. Rousseau encouraged Millet to paint landscapes, which he did increasingly after 1863. His paintings sold well in the last decade of his life, and he received both public and private commissions.

Although Parisians tended to assume he was uneducated, Millet's early schooling with two village priests inculcated in him a thorough knowledge of Latin literature and a love of reading. A deep sense of tradition is palpable in his works, allied to a sincere love of the countryside.

Source: Monet and the Impressionists exhibition catalogue:
Shackelford, George T M. Monet and the Impressionists.
Sydney: Art Gallery of New South Wales, 2008

Works by Jean-François Millet in the exhibition

Washerwomen  c1855, Jean-François Millet.
Oil on canvas. Museum of Fine Arts, Boston: gift of Mrs Martin Brimmer

Priory at Vauville, Normandy  1872–74, Jean-François Millet.
Oil on canvas. Museum of Fine Arts, Boston: gift of Quincy Adams Shaw through Quincy Adams Shaw Jr and Mrs Marian Shaw Haughton