Reproduction Jean-François Millet - The Gleaners, 1857

Jean-François Millet (1814 - 1875)
The Gleaners, 1857
Oil on canvas
H. 83,5 ; L. 110 cm
Donation subject to usufruct Mme Pommery, 1890
© Musée d'Orsay, Dist. RMN-Grand Palais / Patrice Schmidt

True to one of Millet's favourite subjects - peasant life - this painting is the culmination of ten years...

Jean-François Millet (1814 - 1875)
The Gleaners, 1857
Oil on canvas
H. 83,5 ; L. 110 cm
Donation subject to usufruct Mme Pommery, 1890
© Musée d'Orsay, Dist. RMN-Grand Palais / Patrice Schmidt

True to one of Millet's favourite subjects - peasant life - this painting is the culmination of ten years of research on the theme of the gleaners.
These women incarnate the rural working-class. They were authorised to go quickly through the fields at sunset to pick up, one by one, the shafts of wheat missed by the harvesters.
The painter shows three of them in the foreground, bent double, their eyes raking the ground.
He thus juxtaposes the three phases of the back-breaking repetitive movement imposed by this thankless task: bending over, picking up and straightening up again.
Their austerity contrasts with the abundant harvest in the distance: haystacks, sheaves of wheat, a cart and a busy crowd of harvesters. The festive, brightly lit bustle is further distanced by the abrupt change of scale.
The slanting light of the setting sun accentuates the volumes in the foreground and gives the gleaners a sculptural look. It picks out their hands, necks, shoulders and backs and brightens the colours of their clothing.

© GrandPalaisRmnCréations, Paris 2026