Oil painting, 'The Well at Gruchy', Jean-François Millet, 1854

In a courtyard. a woman is pouring water in two jars lying on the ground before a well with ducks or geese around her; the well is adossed to a house with stairs on the left.

Bequeathed by Constantine Alexander Ionides

Bought by Buck Reid at Millet sale, Paris, 10 May 1875, lot 12; bought by Durlacher for 2.300 francs; Henry Hill, Brighton; sold Christie's, 25 May 1889, lot 39, bought by Buck & Reid, £78 15s; however, CAI 49 does not appear on Ionides's inventory of his collection (private collection). Bequeathed by Constantine Alexander Ionides, 1900.

Historical significance: This painting was probably painted in the summer 1854 and is a fine example of Millet's rural imagery. It depicts a view of the artist's childhood house in the village of Gruchy in Normandy. The village and its surroundings especially the near cliffs of Gréville, were a great source of inspiration for Millet, who executed many views of the landscapes and figure studies. The peasant woman pouring water in two jars appears in different positions in a number of drawings in black chalk (see for instance RF 11226, Musée du Louvre, Paris). Millet also extensively drew the house from various points of view (see for instance in the Musée des Beaux-Arts, Lyon).
This composition does not display the vigorous free and broken brushwork, which is about to become the hallmark of the Barbizon school and appears therefore a fine example of Millet's early career. The ainting however already encloses Millet's earthen palette with dominant touches of vivid colours such as here the intense blue of the woman's sleeves, the brilliant white of her shirt and the radiant green of the left hand-side foliage.
Millet described himself as a 'peasant painter' and favoured above all the depiction of the contemporary rural life. This favoured imagery was in part a response to the industrial revolution and the rural depopulation, which started as soon as the 1840s.

19th-century French art is marked by a succession of movements based on a more or less close relationship with nature. At the beginning of the century, Romantic artists were fascinated by nature they interpreted as a mirror of the mind. They investigated human nature and personality, the folk culture, the national and ethnic origins, the medieval era, the exotic, the remote, the mysterious and the occult. This movement was heralded in France by such painter as Eugène Delacroix (1798-1863). In its opposition to academic art and its demand for a modern style Realism continued the aims of the Romantics. They assumed that reality could be perceived without distortion or idealization, and sought after a mean to combine the perception of the individual with objectivity. This reaction in French painting against the Grand Manner is well represented by Gustave Courbet (1819-1877) who wrote a 'Manifesto of Realism', entitled Le Réalisme published in Paris in 1855. These ideas were challenged by the group of the Barbizon painters, who formed a recognizable school from the early 1830s to the 1870s and developed a free, broad and rough technique. They were mainly concerned by landscape painting and the rendering of light. The works of Narcisse Virgile Diaz de la Peña (1807-1876), Jules Dupré (1811-1889), Théodore Rousseau (1812-1867), Constant Troyon (1810-1865) and Jean-François Millet (1814-1875) anticipate somehow the plein-air landscapes of the Impressionists.

Jean-François Millet (1814-1875) was born in Normandy and first trained with a local portrait painter, Bon Du Mouchel (1807-1846), and later in Cherbourg with Lucien-Théophile Langlois (1803-1845), a pupil of Antoine-Jean Gros (1771-1835). In Paris, he then entered the atelier of the history painter Paul Delaroche (1797-1856). He first specialised in portraiture and then moved towards the naturalistic style with peasant scenes for which he became best known.

This painting is a fine example of Millet's early output. It depicts a woman pouring water in jars by a well, before the artist's childhood house in Gruchy (Normandy, France). Millet is best known for his rural scenes although he painted a few portraits, and is one of the most authoritative exponents of the Barbizon school, an artistic movement that anticipated the Impressionism and derived somehow from the new interest for realism.

CAI.49