Julien Dupré

Milkmaids in the Pasture is a vision of pastoral life.  Though the lovely milkmaids have an important job to do, they and the animals in their charge seem suspended, captured by the artist’s desire to savor this moment, his subjects at one with the life-cycle of the land.  The cows and sheep at center look at the viewer inquisitively, with open friendliness.  The artist, whose works were collected by Americans since in the nineteenth century, was a constant witness to France's natural rural beauty, soon to change forever due to advancing industrialization.