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Estimate: $ 6,000 - $ 9,000
JEAN-FRANÇOIS MILLET Le Semeur.
Lithograph on antique cream laid paper, 1851. 192x156 mm; 7 5/8x6 1/8 inches, full margins. Third state (of 3). A superb, dark impression with strong contrasts and with all the subtle tonal variations distinct.
Millet's (1814-1875) Le Semeur (or The Sower) is based on his same-titled oil on canvas from 1850, now in the collection of the Museum of Fine Arts, Boston. Millet moved to Barbizon in 1849, a village in the Fontainebleau forest, outside Paris. There he was part of the artist group of the Barbizon school, including Jean-Baptiste-Camille Corot (1796-1875) and Charles-François Daubigny (1817-1878), which painted subdued realistic landscapes and peasant figures in contrast to the traditional and entrenched Romantic style. Millet was himself a farmer's son and represented in his art, with dignity and seriousness, the hard-working life of the rural population. Le Semeur was the first major oil painting that Millet made in Barbizon. He exhibited it at the Paris Salon in 1850 where it received significant attention and criticism. Millet returned to the subject several times again, in oil and color pastels (Carnegie Museum of Art, Pittsburgh; Clark Art Institute, Williamstown; and Walters Art Museum, Baltimore), as well as this contemporaneous lithograph. Vincent van Gogh found inspiration in Millet's paintings of agricultural landscapes and farm workers. He copied Le Semeur in several of his own paintings from the 1880s, but transformed the images with his brighter palette and signature Post-Impressionist style. Delteil 22; Melot 22.
