Retreat from the Storm

Jean-François Millet

ca. 1846 · Oil on canvas · European Paintings

The impending storm poses a real threat to this woman and her child, whose subsistence depends on the stray sticks of firewood they have gathered. Throughout the 1840s the number of homeless peasants increased dramatically in France, reaching a crisis in the recession of 1847 and contributing to the fall of King Louis-Philippe in the 1848 revolution. Millet's singular image, rivalling Delacroix in its depth of emotion and Daumier in its graphic economy, probably represents Millet’s first treatment of this theme. He reworked the composition in a painting now in the Denver Art Museum.

Artist

Jean-François Millet

Date

ca. 1846

Medium

Oil on canvas

Department

European Paintings

Credit line

Gift of Sarina Tang and Peter M. Wood, 2002