Millet: Life on the Land @ National Gallery, London

Millet: Life on the Land

National Gallery, London

7 August – 19 October 2025

The first UK exhibition in nearly 50 years dedicated to Jean-François Millet (1814–1875) will open at the National Gallery in autumn 2025. 

The show will coincide with the 150th anniversary of Millet’s death – by which time his works were well known in the UK and beginning to be eagerly collected by an enthusiastic group of British collectors, resulting in a significant body of his work in UK public collections.

Millet: Life on the Land will present around 13 paintings and drawings from British public collections. It will include the National Gallery’s The Winnower (about 1847‒8), and the exceptional loan of 'L’Angelus' (1857‒9) from the Musée d’Orsay, Paris.

The exhibition will range from Millet’s last years in Paris through to his images of workers on the land during the 1850s following his move to the village of Barbizon in the Fontainebleau Forest in 1849, when he became one of the most significant painters associated with the 19th-century Barbizon school. Two drawings of shepherdesses from the Cooper Gallery (Barnsley) and the Fitzwilliam Museum (Cambridge) will be shown together for the first time.

'The Winnower', which was acquired by the National Gallery in 1978, is one of Millet’s first paintings to treat the theme of rural labour. It was exhibited at the Salon of 1848 and was well received. However, later works exhibited at the Paris Salon produced extreme reaction. While Millet’s own political convictions are unclear, many critics appropriated his work for their own progressive agenda while others labelled him as subversive. Yet there is no doubt that he had sympathy with the workers around him and wrote in 1851 of the ‘human side’ that touched him most. 

In 'L’Angelus', a man and a woman are reciting the Angelus, a prayer which commemorates the annunciation made to Mary by the angel Gabriel. It is traditionally cited at morning, noon and evening, when it marks the end of the working day.  Never collected by its original commissioner, it followed an extraordinary journey through several collections and sales. The two quiet figures silhouetted against land and sky, the profound sense of meditation underscored by a beauty of light have turned it into a world-famous icon in the 20th century. 

Sarah Herring, Associate Curator of Post 1800 Paintings, says ‘Millet endowed rural labourers with dignity and nobility, depicting them in drawings and paintings with empathy and compassion.’ 

Nadar (French, Paris 1820-1910 Paris)

Jean-Francois Millet, 1856-58

Salted paper print from paper negative; Mount: 

15 7/8 in. — 11 5/8 in. (40.4 — 29.5 cm) 

Image: 10 9/16 — 8 3/8 in. (26.8 — 21.3 cm)

The Metropolitan Museum of Art, New York, 

Bequest of Maurice B. Sendak, 2012 (2013.159.46)

www.metmuseum.org/Collections/search-the-collections/306329 

Jean-François Millet (1814–1875)

Jean-François Millet was born at Grouchy (Manche) and was a pupil of Paul Delaroche in Paris by 1837. For some years he painted chiefly idylls in imitation of 18th-century French painters. Becoming, like Honoré Daumier, increasingly moved by the spectacle of social injustice, Millet turned to peasant subjects and won his first popular success at the Salon of 1848 with The Winnower. From the following year he was chiefly active at Barbizon and associated with the Barbizon school of landscape painters.

His work was influenced by Dutch paintings of the 17th century and by the work of Jean-Siméon Chardin and was influential in Holland on Jozef Israëls and on the early style of Vincent Van Gogh.

Barbizon school

The Barbizon school of painters were part of an art movement toward Realism in art, which arose in the context of the dominant Romantic Movement of the time. The Barbizon school was active roughly from 1830 through 1870. It takes its name from the village of Barbizon, France, on the edge of the Forest of Fontainebleau, where many of the artists gathered. Most of their works were landscape painting, but several of them also painted landscapes with farm workers, and genre scenes of village life. Some of the most prominent features of this school are its tonal qualities, colour, loose brushwork, and softness of form.

The leaders of the Barbizon school were: Théodore Rousseau, Charles-François Daubigny, Jules Dupré, Constant Troyon, Charles Jacque, and Narcisse Virgilio Díaz. Jean-François Millet lived in Barbizon from 1849, but his interest in figures with a landscape backdrop sets him rather apart from the others.

NATIONAL GALLERY, LONDON

www.nationalgallery.org.uk

Eugène Delacroix & Gustave Courbet @ Musée Gustave Courbet, Ornans - Delacroix s’invite chez Courbet

Delacroix s’invite chez Courbet

Musée Gustave Courbet, Ornans

28 octobre 2023 - 4 février 2024

Nadar (1820-1910),

Portrait de Gustave Courbet, Vers 1861

Épreuve sur papier albuminé ; 23,6 x 19 cm

Ornans, musée départemental Gustave Courbet – Inv. 1976.1.62

© Musée départemental Gustave Courbet / Photo : Pierre Guenat

Gustave Courbet (1819-1877)

Pirate prisonnier du dey d’Alger, 1844

Huile sur toile ; 81,3 x 65,4cm

Ornans, musée départemental Gustave Courbet – Inv. 1992.1.1

© Musée départemental Gustave Courbet / Photo : Pierre Guenat

Gustave Courbet (1819-1877),

Les Amants dans la campagne, Vers 1867

Encre sur papier vélin ; 28,7 x 20cm

Ornans, musée départemental Gustave Courbet – Inv. 1976.1.12

© Musée départemental Gustave Courbet / Photo : Pierre Guenat

Gustave Courbet (1819-1877),

Taureau blanc et génisse blonde, Vers 1850

Huile sur toile ; 91,5 x 116,5cm

Ornans, musée départemental Gustave Courbet – Inv. 2002.3.1

© Musée départemental Gustave Courbet / Photo : Pierre Guenat 

Eugène Delacroix (1798-1863),

Étude de deux paons, d’un cygne et d’un cheval, 1854

Crayon et encre brune sur papier ; 24,3 x 28cm

Paris, Musée national Eugène-Delacroix – Inv. MD 2022-3

© Musée du Louvre / Raphaël Chipault

Pendant sa fermeture pour travaux, le musée national Eugène-Delacroix, qui fait partie de l’Établissement public du musée du Louvre, a choisi le musée départemental Gustave Courbet comme écrin éphémère d’une large sélection de ses collections. Le partenariat exceptionnel entre ces deux «musées-ateliers» donne lieu à une exposition inédite, Delacroix s’invite chez Courbet, présentant pour la première fois à Ornans plus de 60 œuvres d'Eugène Delacroix.

En s’invitant chez Gustave Courbet (1819-1877), Eugène Delacroix (1798-1863) se révèle pluriel et complexe, mais aussi une inspiration audacieuse pour les nouvelles générations. Les collections du musée national Eugène-Delacroix nous invitent à cheminer à travers la carrière du maître, de l’intimité de son atelier jusqu’à sa postérité. Elles permettent de découvrir des œuvres souvent méconnues et de mieux comprendre le processus créatif du peintre. Nous découvrons ainsi, un « Delacroix privé » parfois loin de l’image qu’il a voulu construire.

L’exposition est aussi l’occasion d’un dialogue inédit, permettant de questionner la relation méconnue entre le « vieux lion du romantisme » et le « rude ouvrier » du réalisme, ces deux artistes majeurs du XIXe siècle. Cette relation souvent définie par un dédain respectif, dû à l’incompréhension de l’un et à la nature catégorique et entière de l’autre, s’avère plus complexe qu’en apparence. Si Gustave Courbet, de vingt ans son cadet, estime Eugène Delacroix comme une référence constante mais secrète, ce dernier est un critique intéressé du jeune peintre « révolutionnaire », louant dans son journal la «vigueur » de sa peinture. 

Exposition organisée par le musée départemental Gustave Courbet d’Ornans et le musée national Eugène-Delacroix – Établissement Public du musée du Louvre

Musée Gustave Courbet

1 Place Robert Fernier, 25290 Ornans

www.musee-courbet.fr

Charles Marville: Photographer of Paris at The Metropolitan Museum of Art

Charles Marville: Photographer of Paris 
The Metropolitan Museum of Art, New York 
January 29 - May 4, 2014 

Widely acknowledged as one of the most talented photographers of the 19th century, CHARLES MARVILLE (French, 1813–1879) was commissioned by the city of Paris to document both the picturesque, medieval streets of old Paris and the broad boulevards and grand public structures that Baron Georges-Eugène Haussmann built in their place for Emperor Napoleon III. Charles Marville: Photographer of Paris at The Metropolitan Museum of Art presents a selection of around 100 of his photographs.

Charles Marville (French, 1813–1879)

Sky Study, Paris, 1856-1857

Albumen print from collodion negative

16.7 x 20.6 cm (6 9/16 x 8 1/8 in.)

Gilman Collection, Purchase, Ann Tenenbaum and Thomas H. Lee Gift, 2005 

The Metropolitan Museum of Art (2005.100.353)

Charles Marville achieved moderate success as an illustrator of books and magazines early in his career. It was not until 1850 that he shifted course and took up photography—a medium that had been introduced just 11 years earlier. His poetic urban views, detailed architectural studies, and picturesque landscapes quickly garnered praise. Although he made photographs throughout France, Germany, and Italy, it was his native city— especially its monuments, churches, bridges, and gardens—that provided the artist with his greatest and most enduring source of inspiration.

By the end of the 1850s, Marville had established a reputation as an accomplished and versatile photographer. From 1862, as official photographer for the city of Paris, he documented aspects of the radical modernization program that had been launched by Emperor Napoleon III and his chief urban planner, Baron Georges-Eugène Haussmann. In this capacity, Marville photographed the city’s oldest quarters, and especially the narrow, winding streets slated for demolition. Even as he recorded the disappearance of Old Paris, Charles Marville turned his camera on the new city that had begun to emerge. Many of his photographs celebrate its glamour and comforts, while other views of the city’s desolate outskirts attest to the unsettling social and physical changes wrought by rapid modernization. 

Charles Marville (French, 1813–1879)

Cour Saint-Guillaume, ca. 1865

Albumen silver print from glass negative

34.2 x 27.2 cm (13 7/16 x 10 11/16 in.) Classification:

Gilman Collection, Purchase, Alfred Stieglitz Society Gifts, 2005

The Metropolitan Museum of Art (2005.100.378)

Haussmann not only redrew the map of Paris, he transformed the urban experience by commissioning and installing tens of thousands of pieces of street furniture, kiosks, Morris columns for posting advertisements, pissoirs, garden gates, and, above all, some twenty thousand gas lamps. By the time he stepped down as prefect in 1870, Paris was no longer a place where residents dared to go out at night only if accompanied by armed men carrying lanterns. Taken as a whole, Marville’s photographs of Paris stand as one of the earliest and most powerful explorations of urban transformation on a grand scale.

By the time of his death, Marville had fallen into relative obscurity, with much of his work stored in municipal or state archives. This exhibition, which marks the bicentennial of Marville’s birth, explores the full trajectory of the artist’s photographic career and brings to light the extraordinary beauty and historical significance of his art. 

Charles Marville (French, 1813–1879)

Rue de Constantine (fourth arrondissement), 1866

Albumen silver print from glass negative

27.3 x 36.8 cm (10 3/4 x 14 1/2 in.)

The Horace W. Goldsmith Foundation Fund, through Joyce and Robert Menschel, 1986

The Metropolitan Museum of Art (1986.1141)

Charles Marville: Photographer of Paris was organized by the National Gallery of Art, Washington, in association with The Metropolitan Museum of Art, New York. The exhibition is curated by Sarah Kennel, Associate Curator of Photographs at the National Gallery of Art. The presentation of the exhibition in New York is organized by Jeff L. Rosenheim, Curator in Charge, and Doug Eklund, Curator, based on a curatorial program established by Malcolm Daniel, former Senior Curator, of the Metropolitan Museum’s Department of Photographs. The exhibition is made possible in part by Jennifer S. and Philip F. Maritz. 

Paris as Muse: Photography, 1840s-1930s 

William Henry Fox Talbot (British, 1800–1877)

View of the Boulevards of Paris, 1843

Salted paper print from paper negative

6 5/16 × 8 1/2 in. (16.1 × 21.6 cm)

Bequest of Maurice B. Sendak, 2013

The Metropolitan Museum of Art, New York (2013.159.57)

Nadar (French, 1820–1910)

Catacombs, Paris, April 1862

Albumen silver print from glass negative

23.7 x 18.6 cm (9 5/16 x 7 5/16 in.) 

Gilman Collection, Purchase, Denise and Andrew Saul Gift, 2005

The Metropolitan Museum of Art, New York (2005.100.813)

Concurrent with Charles Marville: Photographer of Paris, a related installation in the adjacent Howard Gilman Gallery will be on view at the Metropolitan Museum. Paris as Muse: Photography, 1840s-1930s (January 27 - May 4, 2014) celebrates the first 100 years of photography in Paris and features some 40 photographs, all drawn from the Museum’s collection. The installation focuses primarily on architectural views, street scenes, and interiors. It explores the physical shape and texture of Paris and how artists have found poetic ways to record through the camera its essential qualities. The curator for Paris as Muse: Photography, 1840s–1930s, is Jeff L. Rosenheim. 

Eugène Atget (French, 1857–1927)

Boulevard de Strasbourg, Corsets, Paris, 1912 

Gelatin silver print from glass negative 

22.4 x 17.5 cm (8 13/16 x 6 7/8 in.) 

Gilman Collection, Purchase, Ann Tenenbaum and Thomas H. Lee Gift, 2005 

The Metropolitan Museum of Art, New York (2005.100.511)

Ilse Bing (German, 1899–1998)

Lamp Post, rue de la Chaise, Paris, 1934 

Gelatin silver print 

22.3 x 28.2 cm (8 3/4 x 11 1/8 in.) 

Bequest of Ilse Bing Wolff, 1998 

The Metropolitan Museum of Art, New York (2003.151.11)

© Estate of Ilse Bing, Courtesy Edwynn Houk Gallery

The Metropolitan Museum of Art 
www.metmuseum.org

La Boheme at Museum Ludwig Cologne - The Staging of Artists in photography of the 19th and 20th century

“La Bohème”. The Staging of Artists in photography of the 19th and 20th century
Museum Ludwig, Cologne
25 September 2010 - 9 January 2011

In his 1851 novel Scènes de la Vie de Bohème, the French author Henri Murger created the image of the artist as an outsider who, in the midst of the middle class era, lived in romantic poverty. Bohemian life, viewed through rose-tinted glasses and elevated to undying popularity by Puccini’s opera, constituted in Murger’s view a transitional stage: “Bohemia is the first stage in artistic life; it is the preface to the Academy, the hospital, or the Morgue.” The term became synonymous with the 19th century artist who was dependent on an anonymous market and, while free of constraints, had to sell the fruits of his labours without the patronage of the courts. In the middle of this period in which the legend of the Bohemian swelled to bolster the artists’ feelings of self-confidence, came the invention of photography. Just how far this colourful approach to life was mirrored in photographic stagings of artists are examined in this exhibition at Museum Ludwig. It traces out the idea of the Bohemian milieu in photographic portraits, scenes and stagings.

The span of the work covered here extends from the earliest Daguerreotypes to the striking portraits by Nadar and the opulent artists’ banquets of the 1920s. Thus for instance Louis Alphonse de Brébisson staged around 1842 a group of friends painting and playing instruments as the quintessence of a romantic artists’ association in Bohemia. Felix Tournachon, known as Nadar, was not only a leading member of the Parisian Bohemians, he also created legendary portraits of his friends and contemporaries. No less ingenious was the collaboration between David Octavius Hill and Robert Adamson, whose group photographs such as Edinburgh Ale aimed at positioning themselves close to the artistic Bohemia. Historical pageants and so-called tableaux vivants tell of the lengths people went to dress up, not least for the artists’ and academy balls in the 19th century. Also on show are numerous poetic stagings done after historical models by David Wilkie Wynfield, a Pre-Raphaelite photographer, and Julia Margaret Cameron.

Paris remained however the metropolis of art and artists, and so the self-stagings from around 1900 by the artists of Montmartre and Montparnasse, such as Modigliani and Picasso, testify to their will to style. Likewise the figure of the dandy rose up amid this milieu in 19th century France. Stunning examples of this include the self-representations of the Pictorialists, such as Alfred Stieglitz and Frank Eugene Smith. The outlandish costumes in which the author Pierre Loti dressed up and the studio scenarios created for instance by Alphonse Mucha were also directly imbued with typical French flair. A special highlight will be the photographs of Ernst Ludwig Kirchner, in which self-staging was wed with deep psychological introspection. Opulent and fanciful were the artists’ parties of the 1920s; on show will be examples from the Malkasten Düsseldorf, from Cologne, Hamburg, and from the Bauhaus in Weimar and Dessau, photographed by leading photographers such as August Sander and T. Lux Feininger.

The Museum Ludwig, Cologne

The Museum Ludwig is one of Germany’s most important museums for 20th century art and contemporary art. It was founded in 1976 when Peter and Irene Ludwig presented the City of Cologne with 350 works of modern art. These works predominantly consist of American Pop Art paintings, objects, and sculptures (e.g. by Lichtenstein, Rosenquist, Warhol, and Wesselmann). In this genre the Museum Ludwig boasts the most significant collection outside the USA. A collection of Russian Avant-garde art spanning the years between 1905 and 1935 (Gontcharova, Larionow, Exter, Popova, Malevich, Rodchenko) also came to the museum. In 1986 the Museum Ludwig, together with the Wallraf Richartz Museum, obtained a building of its own situated between Cologne Cathedral, the Rhine river and the central train station. Cologne architects Peter Bussmann and Godfrid Haberer designed the building, which also houses the Philharmonic Hall.

The collection of Cologne lawyer Dr. Josef Haubrich (1889-1961) became part of the Museum Ludwig as well. Immediately after World War II Haubrich had presented the City of Cologne with his collection of Expressionist paintings (Erich Heckel, Karl Schmidt-Rottluff, Ernst Ludwig Kirchner, August Macke, Otto Mueller) and other exponents of Classical Modernism (Marc Chagall, Otto Dix).

In 1994 Peter and Irene Ludwig donated a significant part of their Picasso collection (90 works) to the City of Cologne which made it necessary for the Wallraff Richartz Museum to move to a building of its own. On 31 October 2001, on the occasion of its re-opening, Irene Ludwig donated a further 774 works by Picasso to the Museum Ludwig. Consequently the Museum Ludwig now owns the third largest Picasso collection worldwide, after Barcelona and Paris. It comprises a representative cross-section of all of the artist’s creative periods, covering all genres, materials, and techniques.

1977 saw the start of the photographic collection, very early on for a contemporary art museum. The museum managed to purchase around 1000 photographs from L.Fritz Gruber, the initiator of the photokina fairs. As a result, several icons of 20th century photography became part of the museum’s collection. In addition, important loans and donations were received, among them industrial photography by A. Renger-Patzsch and photographic works by Russian avant-garde artists. With the Agfa Collection the Museum Ludwig owns an internationally renowned collection on the history of 19th century photography.

Also in the 1970s, the Museum Ludwig began to collect video and film works. As early as 1974 the first 16mm films, among others by Bruce Nauman, Richard Serra, Joan Jonas, and ten further artists were purchased. Since then the museum has continuously expanded its collection. Since 2000 the Museum Ludwig has made a special point of collecting and presenting works representing the technical media in the context of contemporary art. The substantial acquisitions, e.g. of works by Aernout Mik, Renee Green, and Mike Kelley can be seen in this context.

www.museum-ludwig.de