Digger
Medium
Woodcut on laid paper; second (final) state; posthumous edition
Dimensions
block: 4 1/8 x 5 1/2 in. (10.5 x 14 cm)
Classification
Prints
Department
Drawings and Prints
Museum
Metropolitan Museum of Art, New York, NY
Credit
Gift of Dr. Van Horne Norrie, 1917
Accession Number
17.34.13
Tags
Art Historical Context
Jean-François Millet's *Digger* (1863) captures the quiet dignity of rural labor, a recurring theme in the French artist's oeuvre. A leading figure of the Realist movement and the Barbizon School, elevated everyday peasant life to subjects of profound artistic merit, challenging the romanticized ideals of academic art in mid-19th-century France Here, a solitary male figure to his task, embodying stoic endurance of agricultural amid the fields of Barbizon. This woodcut, printed on laid paper in its second (final) state a posthumous edition, showcases Millet's mastery of printmaking. Woodcuts, ...
About the Artist
Jean-François Millet · 1814–1875
Jean-François Millet (1814-1875) was a French painter and one of the founders of the Barbizon school, whose dignified depictions of peasant laborers transformed how art could represent rural life. His monumental images of sowers, gleaners, and field workers elevated common people to subjects previously reserved for mythological or historical figures, making him a pivotal figure in the development ...