Public collection via the Cleveland Museum of Art
AT-00000328First Steps
About the Artwork
In the 1860s Jean-François Millet began to add pastel to his black chalk drawings of peasants and rural life, with the hope that the addition of color would make his monochromatic drawings more marketable. Between 1865 and 1869, he worked almost exclusively in pastel, producing more than 100 works. The taste for “enhanced” or “pastelled drawings,” as Millet described them, grew among collectors and artists, and inspired a revival of the medium in the 1870s and 1880s. Here, in a fenced-in garden behind a house, parents encourage their child to walk for the first time. Delicate passages of blue, green, yellow, and red enliven the composition.
Inscriptions
signed, lower right, in black chalk: J. F. Millet
Provenance
after 1859 - 1875: Emile Gavet [1830-1904], Paris 1875: (his sale, Hôtel Drouot, Paris, June 11–12, 1875, no. 80, sold to "Del") 1875-?: "Del" ?-1962: (Rosenberg & Stiebel, Inc., New York) 1962: Mrs. Thomas H. Jones Sr. [Katharine Brooks Jones, d. 1979], Cleveland, given to the Cleveland Museum of Art 1962-: Cleveland Museum of Art, Cleveland, OH
Exhibition history
Year in Review (1963). The Cleveland Museum of Art, Cleveland, OH (organizer) (November 27, 1963-January 5, 1964). Drawings: France, Italy, Netherlands. The Cleveland Museum of Art, Cleveland, OH (organizer) (January 1-March 24, 1965). French Drawings. The Cleveland Museum of Art, Cleveland, OH (organizer) (November 16, 1965-February 16, 1966). Jean-François Millet. Hayward Gallery, London, United Kingdom of Great Britain and Northern Ireland (January 20-March 7, 1976); Galeries Nationales du Grand Palais, 75008 Paris, France (organizer) (October 17-January 5, 1976). Seventeenth-, Eighteenth-, and Early Nineteenth-Century Genre and French Prints and Drawings. The Cleveland Museum of Art, Cleveland, OH (organizer) (May 31-August 19, 1979). Idea to Image: Preparatory Studies from the Renaissance to Impressionism. The Cleveland Museum of Art (organizer) (February 19-March 23, 1980). The Graphic Art of the Barbizon School. The Cleveland Museum of Art, Cleveland, OH (organizer) (March 17-May 17, 1987). Directions in Drawing II: The Human Figure. The Cleveland Museum of Art, Cleveland, OH (organizer) (November 5, 1991-January 12, 1992). French Drawings from the Collection. The Cleveland Museum of Art, Cleveland, OH (organizer) (December 13, 1994-March 12, 1995). Master Drawings from the Cleveland Museum of Art. The Cleveland Museum of Art, Cleveland, OH (organizer) (August 27-October 17, 2000). Pure Color: Pastels from the Cleveland Museum of Art. The Cleveland Museum of Art, Cleveland, OH (organizer) (November 19, 2016-March 19, 2017). Nineteenth-Century French Drawings from the Cleveland Museum of Art. The Cleveland Museum of Art, Cleveland, OH (organizer) (January 20-June 11, 2023).
Data retrieved from the Cleveland Museum of Art on October 7, 2026. The museum may have updated its record since.
Quick Overview
- Artist
- Jean-François Millet (French, 1814–1875)
- Date
- c. 1859–66
- Medium
- black chalk and pastel on beige laid paper
- Dimensions
- Sheet: 29.5 x 45.9 cm (11 5/8 x 18 1/16 in.); Secondary Support: 36 x 50.9 cm (14 3/16 x 20 1/16 in.)
- Type
- Drawing
- Classification
- Drawing
- Department
- Drawings
- Credit line
- Gift of Mrs. Thomas H. Jones, Sr.
- Accession no.
- 1962.407
More by Jean François Millet in museum collections
Open-access museum record · AT-00000328
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