Millet Jean Francois

Millet, Jean Francois (1814-75), French peasant painter, was born in the hamlet of Gruchy, near Greville, in Normandy. In his boyhood he worked with his father in the fields, but the aid of the municipality of Cherbourg enabled him to study painting under Monchel in that town and afterwards under Delaroche in Paris. After eight years of poverty in Paris, he settled at Barbizon, near Fontainebleau, where he formed a close friendship with Theodore Rousseau. At Barbizon all his best works were produced, including The Angelus (1859), The Sower (1850), Peasants Grafting (1855), and The Shepherdess and Flock (1864). In these works the life of the fields is depicted with the utmost fidelity to nature.