01 Work, The Art of War, Jean-François Millet's The Wanderers, with footnotes

Jean-François Millet, French, 1814 - 1875

The Wanderers

Oil on canvas

41 by 32.7cm., 16¼ by 12¾in.

Private collection

Estimate for 40,000 - 60,000 GBP in Dec 2023

Painted during the last years of the 1840s, The Wanderers, of a mother and child paused in their travels with no clear destination before them, is a reflection of the period of great social upheaval in France before and after the 1848 revolution.

The present work is, in many ways, the story of Hagar and Ishmael transposed into a quasi-contemporary modern setting, the Biblical figures substituted for a young peasant mother and her child. The empty water jug most commonly associated with depictions of the Old Testament story to connote the desert setting has here been replaced by a staff and sack, symbols of itinerant wanderers.

Here the young mother comforts her child, but she herself does not appear in distress. On the contrary, her expression is one of stoic calm and graceful beauty, typical of Millet’s depictions of peasants, whom he elevates to a higher, untouchable level. The ambiguities of The Wanderers between the Biblical and the modern are an indication of shifting art patronage. More on this painting

Jean-François Millet, (born October 4, 1814, Gruchy, near Gréville, France—died January 20, 1875, Barbizon), French painter renowned for his peasant subjects.

Millet spent his youth working on the land, but by the age of 19 he was studying art in Cherbourg. In 1837 he arrived in Paris and eventually enrolled in the studio of Paul Delaroche, where he seems to have remained until 1839.

After the rejection of one of his entries for the Salon of 1840, Millet returned to Cherbourg, where he remained during most of 1841, painting portraits. He achieved his first success in 1844 with The Milkmaid and a large pastel, The Riding Lesson, that has a sensual character typical of a large part of his production during the 1840s.

The peasant subjects, which from the early 1850s were to be Millet’s principal concern, made their first important appearance at the Salon of 1848 with The Winnower, later destroyed by fire. In 1849, after a period of great hardship, Millet left Paris to settle in Barbizon, a small hamlet in the forest of Fontainebleau. He continued to exhibit paintings of peasants, and, as a result, periodically faced the charge of being a socialist. Letters of the period defending Millet’s position underline the fundamentally classical nature of his approach to painting. More on Jean-François Millet

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