Jean-François Millet, First Steps
Jones, Sr., 1962.407 · The Cleveland Museum of Art, Open Access (CC0)View original →
Jean-François Millet

First Steps

c. 1859–66

Current Collection

Cleveland Museum of Art

Cleveland, United States

Medium
black chalk and pastel on beige laid paper
Dimensions
29.5 × 45.9 cm
Status
In Museum Collection
Collect24 Art ID
C24-190758

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…

Provenance

Jones, Sr., 1962.407

Registry history

  • c. 1859–66 — Recorded in the collection of Cleveland Museum of Art — drawings

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Auction history

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