Jean-François Millet

Jean-François Millet drew L'Homme à la brouette in the mid-1850s, probably in 1853 or 1854, at a time when he was deeply engaged in creating finished drawings of characteristic activities of village life.  Millet chose timeless rural tasks and shaped compositions that recalled 17th-century Dutch imagery; but he just as deliberately emphasized details of local architecture and typical Barbizon costume.  Many of these Barbizon drawings sprang directly from the realities of Millet’s own family life.  L'Homme à la brouette would never be considered a self-portrait, but it certainly made reference to the significant portion of Millet’s day given over to tending the large vegetable garden that was almost as important to his family’s well-being as his art during the 1850s.  Millet repeated the composition of L'Homme à la brouette in a horizontally organized oil painting (Indianapolis Museum of Art) and in an etching that follows the present drawing very closely.

L'Homme à la brouette originally belonged to Millet’s friend and fellow artist Théodore Rousseau.  Rousseau’s fortunes were at a high point in the mid-1850s, while Millet often struggled to sell any work at all.  In 1855 Rousseau purchased Millet’s Salon painting, another Barbizon garden scene, Peasant Grafting a Tree (Munich, Neue Pinakothek), although he tried to hide his generosity by claiming the actual buyer was a wealthy American.  Whether Rousseau also purchased L'Homme à la brouette from his colleague, or received the drawing as a gift is unrecorded.