Jean-François Millet (1814 – 1875) (after)

NAME:                       Jeune Femme en Buste

ENGLISH NAME:     Young Woman in Bust

MEDIUM:                  Color lithograph

SIGNATURE:            Signed in the plate

ABOUT:

This album, the eighth in a series devoted to the collection of Mr. Pierre Lévy, has a print run of 1000 on Arches vellum. Completed to print on November 23, 1973 by Mourlot for the reproductions of the paintings of the REALISTES LYRIQUES and by Fequet and Baudier for La typographie.

Fernand Mourlot, Paris, 1973.

IMAGE is ACTUAL WORK

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Possible browning of arches paper due to age, but image is in excellent condition.

Jean-François Millet (1814 – 1875) was a French painter and one of the founders of the Barbizon school.  He was part of the Realism movement. He moved to Cherbourg  when his first painting was accepted by the Salon in 1840.  The next year, he married and moved to Paris. After rejections in 1843 from the Salon and his wife’s death, he returned to Cherbourg. He then moved to Le Havre in 1845 where he married again.  They moved back to Paris.

In the mid-1840s he was friends by Troyon, Diaz, Jacque and Rousseau, artists that are associated with the Barbizon school.  Honoré Daumier influenced Millet.  In 1848 his Captivity of the Jews in Babylon was revealed and was not favorable with the critics.  It disappeared a short time later and was believed to be destroyed by Millet.  However, when a museum did an X-Ray of another painting (The Young Shepherdess) they found Captivity under it.

In 1850 he entered into an agreement with Sensier, who provided the artist with supplies. Despite constant mixed reviews at the Salon, his reputation still grew.  He is believed to be a source of inspiration for van Gogh.  His later landscapes serve as a model for Claude Monet’s paintings of the Normandy coast. 

Dali wrote an analysis of his work.  In his analysis, he stated that the work of spiritual peace was actually repressed sexual aggression.  He also believed that the two figures were praying over their buried child, rather than Angelus.  He so adamant about his belief the work had an X-ray done and it revealed a painted geometric shape strikingly similar to a coffin.