Realism in France

Jean-François Millet

Woman with a Rake

probably 1856–57

Oil on canvas, 39.7 × 34.3 cm. The Metropolitan Museum of Art, New York

A single field worker rakes hay beside a haystack, the harvest going on behind her.

• Millet first used the subject in a woodcut for a popular series on farm work, published in 1853.
• It was shown in 1860 at the Martinet gallery, where Courbet and Manet also exhibited.
• A subject first made for cheap prints became an easel painting.

Image: The Metropolitan Museum of Art, New York · Public Domain (Met Open Access)