Woman with a Churn

"Woman with a Churn" is a powerful 1854 drawing by Jean-François Millet, expertly executed in Conté crayon on wove paper. This dense, greasy medium allowed Millet to achieve remarkable tonal depth and velvety texture, capturing the play of light and shadow with high contrast. Created during a period when the artist had firmly established himself in Barbizon, this piece exemplifies his commitment to depicting the realities of 19th-century French peasant life with unvarnished dignity, a defining characteristic of his mature style.

The subject focuses intensely on a woman engaged in the daily domestic labor of churning butter. Millet avoids sentimentalizing the scene, instead presenting the figure with a weighty solemnity that highlights the physical concentration required by the task. The composition emphasizes the simple geometry of the churn and the figure's bent posture, suggesting the constant, tiring routine of agricultural existence. Millet often focused on the essential roles of women in rural economy, treating their work as profoundly important subject matter worthy of monumental treatment.

Classified as a drawing, the immediacy of the Conté crayon technique gives the figure a robust, sculptural quality. The dramatic use of light, which illuminates the worker from an unseen source, lends the piece a meditative strength. Because of their immediate impact and subject popularity, high-quality prints and reproductive engravings were often made from Millet’s popular drawings. Today, this significant representation of rural realism and a critical component of Millet’s legacy resides in the permanent collection of the Metropolitan Museum of Art.