Digger

Digger is a powerful woodcut created by Jean-François Millet, depicting the grueling reality of rural labor in 19th-century France. Executed in brown ink on laid paper, this impression represents the second and final state of the composition. Though the work is dated 1863, this particular impression is a posthumous print, indicating the ongoing appreciation and importance of Millet's graphic output after the artist's death.

Millet was a central figure in the French Realist movement, renowned for his compassionate focus on peasants and working men, often transforming their arduous, mundane activities into compositions of monumental weight. This piece concentrates on a single figure, demonstrating the intense physical exertion required for strenuous manual labor. The figure's posture and the heavy shadow modeling emphasize the fundamental struggle of driving the shovel into the earth, reflecting the artist's lifelong commitment to portraying unvarnished agricultural life.

While Millet is often best known for his large-scale oil paintings, his technical mastery extended deeply into the graphic arts, utilizing media such as the woodcut to create strong, immediate imagery. The classification as one of his major prints allowed for wider dissemination of these socially relevant images during the mid-19th century. This important visual document of European labor history is part of the collection at the Metropolitan Museum of Art. Today, high-quality images of important works from this period often enter the public domain, ensuring continued scholarly and public access to these influential prints.