JEAN-FRANÇOIS MILLET GRUCHY, GRÉVILLE-HAGUE, 1814 – BARBIZON, 1875 Farmhouse in a Landscape c. 1870 Oil on canvas 58 x 73.7 cm. (78.5 x 94.5 cm. with frame) Signed lower left ‘J. F. Millet’ Provenance Secretan Collection, Paris; Edonars Collection, Paris; Foinard Collection, Paris; Goupil & Verledon, Paris, 1892; Purchased by Mr C.M.S. White in 1893, then passed down to his daughter; Kievits Galleries, Pasadena, California, 1931 (purchased from the previous owner) Colonel Steven L’Hommedieu Slocum, Washington, D.C., 1932 (purchased from the previous owner) Knoedler, New York (their mark on the stretcher); Margaret O. F Proctor; Christie’s auction, New York, 12 October 1979, lot 50; Purchased at this auction by the present owner’s father, then passed down through the family. Bathed in soft spring light, these two farm buildings stand peacefully in the hollow of a small valley. All around, the verdant countryside basks in the mildness of the climate. In this Normandy countryside, one can follow the hedgerows as they wind their way, separating the plots and fields, climbing up the hillsides. Trees are rather scarce, most of them fruit trees. This countryside is mainly devoted to pasture. In the foreground, a stream winds its way through the landscape, where a red cow drinks, more adventurous than her companions who have stayed back, near the barn. As you scan this landscape teeming with tiny details, you can also make out a few hens in the shadow of the central building, as well as a flock of geese, further to the right, in a meadow. The grass is a soft green, covering the ground like a carpet as far as the eye can see. The crystal-clear blue sky is streaked with white, timid clouds, hardly threatening. The atmosphere is bucolic and serene, the tone warm and luminous. The countryside that Millet paints here is idyllic. The colour is applied in separate touches on light underpaintings. The outlines are so blurred that the eye struggles to make them out. With his increasingly loose brushwork, Millet is taking small steps towards Impressionism.