France Embraces Millet: The Intertwined Fates of "The Gleaners" and "The Angelus"

Jean-François Millet's two most celebrated paintings of peasant life, "The Gleaners" and "The Angelus", debuted in the late 1850s to hostility and obscurity respectively, and both paintings initially commanded low sale prices. They have contributed to the artist's reputation as a marginalized avant-garde Realist painter. This essay traces the shift in Millet's reputation through these two paintings during the early Third Republic (1871-91), arguing that their unprecedented celebrity demonstrates his successful insertion into a campaign to construct a republican cultural legacy for the nation. It is a case study of the institutional embrace of socially critical paintings and their maker.