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Lot Essay
Milkmaid Leaning against a Tree was drawn by Jean-François Millet in late 1854 or early 1855, following an extended visit to Normandy during the summer of 1854.
Behind the young woman who stares insouciantly out from Milkmaid Leaning Against a Tree, Millet has roughly sketched a pasture gate and at her feet he placed a heavy brass milk canne to identify her as a Norman peasant girl returning from milking cows. But in a pictorial balance that is uncommon for Millet, these details of the milkmaid's task are clearly secondary to his interest in his subject's unusual pose and her forthright engagement with the observer. Milkmaid Leaning against a Tree has the attractive immediacy of a specific encounter with a distinct individual, recorded just as the artist began to imagine a more complete composition.
Millet went on to base a larger painting on the present drawing (Duluth, Tweed Museum of Art) as well as to re-use the figure as a water carrier departing a river bank in both a drawing and a painting that are now lost.
Milkmaid Leaning Against a Tree is inscribed on the verso 'Campredon'. Louis Campredon was a bureaucrat in a Paris insurance firm and one of Millet's most assiduous collectors at the beginning of his career. Just after returning from his Normandy trip, Millet wrote to Campredon telling his friend that he had come back with many wonderful inspirations but warning the collector that there were not as yet finished drawings for any purchaser! Milkmaid Leaning Against a Tree was probably acquired directly from Millet soon thereafter.
We are grateful to Alexandra R. Murphy for preparing this catalogue entry.
Behind the young woman who stares insouciantly out from Milkmaid Leaning Against a Tree, Millet has roughly sketched a pasture gate and at her feet he placed a heavy brass milk canne to identify her as a Norman peasant girl returning from milking cows. But in a pictorial balance that is uncommon for Millet, these details of the milkmaid's task are clearly secondary to his interest in his subject's unusual pose and her forthright engagement with the observer. Milkmaid Leaning against a Tree has the attractive immediacy of a specific encounter with a distinct individual, recorded just as the artist began to imagine a more complete composition.
Millet went on to base a larger painting on the present drawing (Duluth, Tweed Museum of Art) as well as to re-use the figure as a water carrier departing a river bank in both a drawing and a painting that are now lost.
Milkmaid Leaning Against a Tree is inscribed on the verso 'Campredon'. Louis Campredon was a bureaucrat in a Paris insurance firm and one of Millet's most assiduous collectors at the beginning of his career. Just after returning from his Normandy trip, Millet wrote to Campredon telling his friend that he had come back with many wonderful inspirations but warning the collector that there were not as yet finished drawings for any purchaser! Milkmaid Leaning Against a Tree was probably acquired directly from Millet soon thereafter.
We are grateful to Alexandra R. Murphy for preparing this catalogue entry.