Public collection via the Cleveland Museum of Art
AT-00009769Return from the Fields
About the Artwork
This idealized vision of noble peasant life was painted during a period of intense industrialization in France, accompanied by economic depression and the abandonment of farms. Nostalgic peasant scenes were especially popular in the 1840s, a stark contrast to the disillusionment and tension that would violently surface in the Revolution of 1848. The vague shapes and faces of the family seen here make them symbols of the land, rather than individuals.
Inscriptions
Signed lower right: J. F. Millet
Provenance
John W. Wilson. His sale, Paris, Drouot, 27-28 April 1874 (lot 113), Retour des Champs, ff 8,200. Frédéric Hartmann, Münster. His sale, Paris, Drouot, 11 May 1876 (lot 24), Retour des champs, 45 x 38 cm, ff 6,350. W. A. Coats, Scotland, 1901. London sale, Christie's, 10 June 1927 (lot 74), The Last Load, for £483 to Blaker. D. Croal Thompson, 1928. Howard Murray, Montreal. His sale, New York, Parke-Bernet Galleries, 23 October 1941 (lot 34, repr.), bought by L. J. Marion. Hazlitt Gallery, London. Purchased by the CMA in 1972.
Exhibition history
Year in Review: 1972. The Cleveland Museum of Art, Cleveland, OH (organizer) (February 27-March 18, 1973). 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). Return to Nature: Millet, the Barbizon Artists, and the Renewal of the Rural Tradition. Yamanashi Prefectural Museum of Art, Kofu (September 26-December 8, 1998). L'Ecole de Barbizon. Musée des Beaux-Arts de Lyon, 69001 Lyon, France (organizer) (June 20-September 9, 2002). Praised and Ridiculed: French Painting 1820 - 1880. Kunsthaus Zürich, CH-8024 Zürich, Switzerland (organizer) (November 10, 2017-January 28, 2018).
Data retrieved from the Cleveland Museum of Art on October 8, 2026. The museum may have updated its record since.
Quick Overview
- Artist
- Jean-François Millet (French, 1814–1875)
- Date
- c. 1846–47
- Medium
- oil on fabric
- Dimensions
- Framed: 68 x 60 x 10 cm (26 3/4 x 23 5/8 x 3 15/16 in.); Unframed: 46.2 x 37.8 cm (18 3/16 x 14 7/8 in.)
- Type
- Painting
- Classification
- Painting
- Department
- Modern European Painting and Sculpture
- Credit line
- Mr. and Mrs. William H. Marlatt Fund
- Accession no.
- 1972.19
More by Jean François Millet in museum collections
Open-access museum record · AT-00009769
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