{
"data": {
"id": 103898,
"accession_number": "1921.991",
"share_license_status": "CC0",
"tombstone": "Peasant Returning from the Manure Heap, 1855\u201356. Jean-Fran\u00e7ois Millet (French, 1814\u20131875). Etching; plate: 16.2 x 13.2 cm (6 3/8 x 5 3/16 in.). The Cleveland Museum of Art, Gift of Ralph King, 1921.991",
"current_location": null,
"title": "Peasant Returning from the Manure Heap",
"creation_date": "1855\u201356",
"creation_date_earliest": 1855,
"creation_date_latest": 1856,
"artists_tags": [
"male"
],
"culture": [
"France, 19th century"
],
"technique": "etching",
"support_materials": [],
"department": "Prints",
"collection": "PR - Etching",
"type": "Print",
"measurements": "Plate: 16.2 x 13.2 cm (6 3/8 x 5 3/16 in.)",
"dimensions": {
"plate": {
"height": 0.162,
"height_inch": 6,
"height_inch_fraction": 0.375,
"width": 0.132,
"width_inch": 5,
"width_inch_fraction": 0.1875
}
},
"state_of_the_work": "D. III/IV",
"edition_of_the_work": null,
"copyright": null,
"inscriptions": [],
"exhibitions": {
"current": [
{
"id": 304646,
"title": "Barbizon School",
"description": "Barbizon School. The Cleveland Museum of Art, Cleveland, OH (organizer) (January 24-March 3, 1963).",
"opening_date": "1963-01-24T05:00:00"
},
{
"id": 310038,
"title": "The Graphic Art of the Barbizon School",
"description": "The Graphic Art of the Barbizon School. The Cleveland Museum of Art, Cleveland, OH (organizer) (March 17-May 17, 1987).",
"opening_date": "1987-03-17T05:00:00"
},
{
"id": 187619,
"title": "Inventive Impressions: 18th- and 19-Century French Prints",
"description": "Inventive Impressions: 18th- and 19-Century French Prints. The Cleveland Museum of Art, Cleveland, OH (organizer) (August 26-October 28, 2001).",
"opening_date": "2001-08-26T00:00:00"
}
],
"legacy": [
{
"description": "The Cleveland Museum of Art; 8/26/01-10/28/01. \"Inventive Impressions: 18th- and 19th-Century French Prints\".",
"opening_date": "2001-08-26T00:00:00"
}
]
},
"provenance": [
{
"description": "Ralph King [1855-1926], Cleveland Heights, OH",
"citations": [],
"footnotes": null,
"date": "?-1921",
"sortorder": 1
},
{
"description": "The Cleveland Museum of Art, Cleveland, OH",
"citations": [],
"footnotes": null,
"date": "June 21, 1921",
"sortorder": 2
}
],
"find_spot": null,
"related_works": [],
"former_accession_numbers": [
"2005.1920"
],
"did_you_know": null,
"early_education_description": null,
"artlens_description": null,
"description": "Millet moved from Paris to the nearby village of Barbizon in 1849 in search of rustic subject matter. The group of painters working in the countryside surrounding the Forest of Fontainebleau frequently painted out-of-doors in order to create fresh and accurate views of nature. While most of the Barbizon artists focused primarily on landscape, Millet also represented peasants. His works celebrate the nobility and dignity of people living close to the soil, symbols of the stability and continuity lacking in modern life",
"external_resources": {
"wikidata": [
"https://www.wikidata.org/wiki/Q79509493"
],
"internet_archive": [
"https://archive.org/details/clevelandart-1921.991-peasant-returning-fr"
]
},
"citations": [
{
"citation": "Talbot, William S. \u201cJean-Fran\u00e7ois Millet: Return from the Fields.\u201d The Bulletin of the Cleveland Museum of Art 60, no. 9 (November 1973): 259\u2013266.",
"page_number": "Mentioned and reproduced: p. 262-263, figs. 6, 8",
"url": "http://www.jstor.org/stable/25152497"
}
],
"catalogue_raisonne": "Delteil 11 ; Beraldi 12",
"url": "https://clevelandart.org/art/1921.991",
"images": {
"annotation": null,
"web": {
"url": "https://openaccess-cdn.clevelandart.org/1921.991/1921.991_web.jpg",
"width": "729",
"height": "893",
"filesize": "597410",
"filename": "1921.991_web.jpg"
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"print": {
"url": "https://openaccess-cdn.clevelandart.org/1921.991/1921.991_print.jpg",
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},
"alternate_images": [],
"creditline": "Gift of Ralph King",
"image_credit": null,
"sketchfab_id": null,
"sketchfab_url": null,
"gallery_donor_text": null,
"athena_id": 103898,
"creators": [
{
"id": 1667,
"description": "Jean-Fran\u00e7ois Millet (French, 1814\u20131875)",
"extent": null,
"qualifier": null,
"role": "artist",
"biography": "Son of a wealthy farmer, Jean-Fran\u00e7ois Millet studied with a portrait painter from Cherbourg, Bon du Mouchel (1807-1846), himself a student of David (q.v.). Mouchel required his young apprentice to copy paintings in the museum in Cherbourg, where Millet had been sent to enter the studio of Lucien-Th\u00e9ophile Langlois (1803-1845), a former student of Gros (q.v.). Millet received a stipend from the city to move to Paris in 1837, enrolling in the \u00c9cole des Beaux-Arts in the studio of Delaroche (q.v.), where he met Couture (q.v.). Within two years he had left Delaroche, and his stipend was withdrawn. To earn a living, he executed pastels and small paintings in the style of Jean Antoine Watteau (1684-1729) and Fran\u00e7ois Boucher (1703-1770). In 1839 the first painting that Millet sent to the Salon, Saint Anne Instructing the Virgin, was refused. The following year one portrait was accepted at the Salon, and Millet spent the winter in Cherbourg where he could make a living painting portraits. After his marriage to Pauline-Virginie Ono, he returned to Paris, painting various subjects but finding little success. He met Th\u00e9odore Rousseau (q.v.) and Diaz de la Pe\u00f1a (q.v.) and was introduced to Durand-Ruel, who purchased some of his works, at that point mainly pastoral scenes and nudes. In the late 1840s Millet began to devote himself to painting peasants and rural life, subjects that automatically had political overtones in the light of the 1848 revolutions. In 1849 he settled in Barbizon, continuing his depictions of the peasantry. He achieved some financial security thanks to Alfred Sensier, who supplied him with materials and sold his paintings. At the Salon of 1850-51 Millet exhibited The Sower (Museum of Fine Arts, Boston), which received a great deal of attention. Although the conservatives accused Millet of overemphasizing the poverty of the peasants, the republican and leftist movement hailed the painting as a dignified representation of the working class. Millet claimed to be interested solely in the biblical allusions of his subject, yet he seemed to persist in painting the poorest peasants at the worst tasks. The final ten years of his life were successful ones. A retrospective of his work at the Paris Exposition Universelle in 1867 solidified his reputation, and the following year he received the Legion of Honor. His work was influential for generations of artists.",
"name_in_original_language": null,
"birth_year": "1814",
"death_year": "1875",
"use_in_caption": true,
"include_extent": false,
"weight": 1
}
],
"legal_status": "accessioned",
"accession_date": "1921-06-21T00:00:00",
"sortable_date": 1855,
"date_added_to_oa": null,
"date_text": "1855\u201356",
"collapse_artists": false,
"on_loan": false,
"recently_acquired": false,
"record_type": "object",
"conservation_statement": null,
"has_conservation_images": false,
"cover_accession_number": null,
"is_nazi_era_provenance": false,
"impression": null,
"alternate_titles": [],
"is_highlight": false,
"updated_at": "2026-05-29 05:36:21.403000"
}
}