Realism Abroad

Max Liebermann

Women Plucking Geese

1871–72

Oil on canvas, 118 × 172 cm. Alte Nationalgalerie, Berlin

Women sit in a dim shed stripping feathers from geese while an old man brings more.

• It was the first picture he showed in public, at about twenty-five, and it was mocked for its shabby subject and dark colors.
• The sale paid for a journey to Paris, where he saw work by Millet and Courbet for the first time.
• He took the broad, dark handling from the Hungarian painter Mihály Munkácsy, whose studio he had visited in 1871.

Image: Wikimedia Commons · Public domain