Jean François Millet’s etching, “Peasant with a Wheelbarrow”, 1855

Jean François Millet (1814–1875)

“Peasant with a Wheelbarrow” (aka “Le Paysan rentrant du Fumier”; “Peasant Returning from the Manure Heap”), 1855

Etching in brown ink with pale plate-tone on thin Japan paper.

Size: (sheet) 24 x 20 cm, (plate) 16.3 x 13.3 cm

Inscribed in plate at lower right: “J. F. Millet”.

State: iv (of iv) with the address of Delâtre removed

Delteil 11.IV; Melot 11.4

The British Museum offers the following description of this print: “Peasant man returning cart of dung to barn. 1855/ Etching” (https://www.britishmuseum.org/collection/object/P_1931-0721-46).

The Christchurch Art Gallery (Te Puna o Waiwhetū) offers the following insights regarding this print: “Jean-François Millet’s signature depictions of peasant workers recognised a disappearing way of life that also echoed his own past: he was among the many rural labourers who left the French countryside. His artistic ability was first recognised in his teenage years while he was labouring on his parents’ freehold farm in Gruchy, a tiny hamlet on the Normandy coast. He was then apprenticed to a painter in nearby Cherbourg in 1833 and left for Paris four years later. This etching was based on paintings he made between 1848 and 1852” (https://christchurchartgallery.org.nz/collection/79-228/jean-francois-millet/le-paysan-rentrant-du-fumier).

See also the descriptions of this print offered by the Rijksmuseum and the National Gallery of Art: http://hdl.handle.net/10934/RM0001.COLLECT.409064; https://www.nga.gov/collection/art-object-page.9193.html.

Condition: a strong and well-printed impression with pencil notations by previous collectors and remnants of mounting tape (verso); otherwise in an excellent/museum quality condition with no tears, folds, abrasions, stains or foxing.

I am selling this remarkably fine impression of Jean François Millet’s iconic vision of everyday rural life in France before the industrial age for AU$3000 (currently US$2057.91/EUR1972.35/GBP1699.39 at the time of posting this listing) including Express Mail postage and handling to anywhere in the world, but not (of course) any import duties/taxes imposed by some countries. 

If you are interested in purchasing this print by one of the leading artists of the Barbizon School, please contact me (oz_jim@printsandprinciples.com) and I will send you a PayPal invoice to make the payment easy.