• Photo 1
  • Photo 2
  • Photo 3
  • Photo 4
  • Photo 5

The Gleaners, 1857

Jean-francois Millet

Item Number: 29792

$

Jean-François Millet paints three women bent low in a wide harvest field, gleaning leftover heads of wheat after the main harvest has passed. Behind them, in the middle distance, the rich harvest itse...

Full Description
Choose your size
Size Guide
Choose your framing option
Choose Guide
  • ✈️ Free Worldwide Shipping & Production Times
    Open

    Total Estimated Delivery: 24–46 Business Days

    Since this is a 100% hand-painted artwork made to order, delivery takes a bit longer than mass-produced prints. Here is the exact breakdown:

    • Processing (14–21 Business Days): Our artists craft and hand-paint your piece. High-quality oil paintings require time for layers to dry properly to ensure they arrive in perfect condition.
    • Shipping Transit: Once your painting passes quality control, it is handed over to our reliable shipping partners.
      • USA, Canada & Europe: 10–20 business days
      • Australia & Rest of World: 15–25 business days

    Customs Note: International orders may be subject to import duties/taxes, which are the buyer's responsibility.

  • 🛡️ 30-Day Money-Back Guarantee & Returns
    Open

    We want your purchase experience to be as easy as possible! You have 30 days after receiving your item to request a return.

    • Standard Artworks: Eligible for return within 30 days (must be new, unused, and in original packaging). For "change of mind" returns, the buyer covers return shipping costs. We do not charge any restocking fees.
    • Damaged or Defective Items: If your art arrives damaged, contact us immediately. We will offer a free replacement or a full refund and cover any return shipping costs.
    • Custom & Personalized Orders: Due to their unique nature, portraits and custom-modified artworks are final sale and cannot be returned unless they arrive damaged.
    • Cancellations: You may cancel your order for free within 24 hours of purchase.

    To start a return, simply contact us at info@tryartwork.com.

  • 🎨 100% Hand-Painted Oil Art
    Open

    This is NOT a print. You are purchasing a genuine, hand-painted oil reproduction created by a skilled artist.

    We use museum-quality canvas and rich oil paints to capture the texture, depth, and soul of the original masterpiece. Every brushstroke is applied by hand, making your artwork truly unique.

Our benefits
  • 100% Hand-Painted Oil
    100% Hand-Painted Oil
  • Free Worldwide Shipping
    Free Worldwide Shipping
  • Museum-Quality Standards
    Museum-Quality Standards
Features “The Gleaners, 1857” by Jean-francois Millet
Overview
Author
Color
Brown, Green, Blue, Beige, Gray, Black
Tags
Millet, Gleaners, Peasants, Agriculture, 19th Century, Labor, Farm Tools
Concept and Style
Topics
Peasants
Painting Details
Period
19th Century
Alternate Titles
Harvesting The Fields
Art Movement
Realism
Historical Events
Agricultural Revolution
Visual and Stylistic Elements
Brushwork/Texture
Soft And Realistic
Focal Point
The Women Collecting Wheat
Light Source
Bright Sunlight
Objects
Three Women , Fields , Gleaned Crops , Distant Buildings
Orientation
Horizontal
Perspective
Wide Agricultural Perspective
Original Masterpiece Features
Creation Process
Oil On Canvas
Inscriptions/Signatures
Signed By Millet
Provenance
Musée D'Orsay
Influences and Related Works
Influences
Realism, Peasant Labor
Related Works
The Shepherdess
Exhibition and Market Information
Criticism & Reception
Recognized As A Landmark In Social Realism
Cultural Significance
Depicts The Hardship And Grace Of Farm Workers
Current Owner
Musée D'Orsay
Exhibition History
Musée D'Orsay, Paris
Public Domain Status
Public Domain
Did you see an error in the description or specifications? Let us know about it!
Report an error
Description “The Gleaners, 1857” by Jean-francois Millet

Jean-François Millet paints three women bent low in a wide harvest field, gleaning leftover heads of wheat after the main harvest has passed. Behind them, in the middle distance, the rich harvest itself is being loaded onto carts. The composition contrasts the small, slow labour of the gleaners with the abundance behind them; the colour is held to warm gold, deep red of the women's caps and a low band of pale sky.

The painting belongs to Millet's mid-1850s rural-labour series and is one of the central works of nineteenth-century French Realism. The flat horizontality of the field is one of the most studied compositional decisions in the period.

As an oil painting on canvas, the warm gold of the field and the deep red of the women's caps depend on real paint to keep their contrast — passages that print tends to push together. The picture suits a long horizontal wall in a dining room, a sitting room, or a study with steady daylight. A traditional gilded frame is the period-correct pairing; a slim dark wood profile keeps it more contemporary.

Collector's Guide PDF “The Gleaners, 1857” by Jean-francois Millet
Reviews “The Gleaners, 1857” by Jean-francois Millet
Add your review
Q/A “The Gleaners, 1857” by Jean-francois Millet
Experts answer questions
Add your questions
Frequently Asked Questions
  • What does Jean-François Millet depict in The Gleaners?
    Open Answer

    Millet depicts three peasant women gleaning — bending to collect the individual stalks of wheat left behind after the harvest on a large French farm in Normandy — their backs bent in the repetitive labor of the very poorest rural workers, who by ancient tradition were permitted to gather what the reapers had missed. In the background, the abundant harvest of the wealthy farmers is being loaded onto wagons; in the foreground, these three women collect what they can with dignified, unhurried persistence.

  • What visual qualities define Millet's Realist approach to rural labor?
    Open Answer

    Millet organizes the three figures in a frieze across the foreground of the composition, their repeated gesture of bending and gathering creating a rhythm that has the quality of religious meditation — the labor eternal, the figures archetypal rather than individual. The warm, golden light of the late afternoon bathes the scene without sentimentalizing it: the women are monumental rather than picturesque, their poverty acknowledged without pity or condescension. The distant background, with its bustling harvest activity, provides an implicit social contrast that gives the composition its quiet political charge.

  • What was the social significance of The Gleaners in 1857 France?
    Open Answer

    When The Gleaners was exhibited at the Paris Salon of 1857, it was immediately understood as a painting with a social agenda — an image of rural poverty at a time of rapid industrialization and agrarian change that challenged the comfortable assumptions of bourgeois urban audiences. Conservative critics attacked it as socialist propaganda; more perceptive viewers recognized it as something more complex: an image of working-class dignity and historical continuity that derived its power from its refusal of sentimentality. The painting is now in the Musée d'Orsay in Paris, where it is one of the most visited works in the collection.

  • What atmosphere does a print of The Gleaners create in a home?
    Open Answer

    The painting's warm, golden light, its monumental treatment of humble labor, and its quality of quiet, dignified persistence create a deeply humanizing and morally resonant presence in any interior. It suits a living room, study, or dining room where its combination of natural warmth and human dignity can be appreciated without sentimentality. For admirers of Millet's social realism and the French rural landscape tradition, it is one of the most beautiful and morally serious paintings of the nineteenth century.

Additional Information “The Gleaners, 1857” by Jean-francois Millet

“Millet made poverty monumental.” Robert Herbert

“The gleaners bend with the weight of necessity.” Alexandra Murphy

“Rural labor becomes epic subject.” T.J. Clark

“Millet honored those society ignored.” Griselda Pollock

“The harvest leaves little for the poor.” Laura Meixner

#1. Rural Poor. The painting shows peasant women gleaning leftover grain after the harvest.

#2. Social Commentary. Critics saw the painting as a political statement about rural poverty.

#3. Biblical Theme. Gleaning has biblical associations with Ruth and charity to the poor.

#4. Monumental Dignity. Millet gave the humble workers heroic, sculptural presence.

#5. Controversial Reception. The painting disturbed bourgeois viewers at its debut.

A study suits it well; a reading corner reads equally as well or office. Pair it with subdued surroundings; the painting itself provides the visual interest. brushed brass lamps and soft wool textiles in a gallery-style interior set it off well. It rewards a quiet wall where its color and brushwork can be read without competition. Soft warm lighting deepens the brown, green, and blue palette.

A studio reproducing this work focuses on the wide agricultural perspective and the focal point — the women collecting wheat. Skin and fabric are handled in different rhythms; one stays smooth, the other carries visible weave. The painter's task is to honor the original's rhythm without trying to copy every mark mechanically. The painter signs no claim to museum-level replication; the goal is a careful, honest oil reproduction.

Space unfolds gradually, anchored by The Women Collecting Wheat and shaped by wide agricultural perspective. Among the elements on the surface are three women, fields, gleaned crops, and distant buildings, each given its share of attention. Sunlight catches the surface, picking out highlight against shadow. A working palette of brown, green, blue, and beige shapes the surface, modulated rather than declared. Brushwork is consistent across the scene, the touch held in steady register. Seen at a single glance the picture resolves; seen longer it keeps opening up.

More From Jean-francois Millet