Woodcutter Making a Faggot

Woodcutter Making a Faggot is a seminal print created by Jean-François Millet in 1853. This work exemplifies Millet’s commitment to depicting the dignity of rural labor, a theme central to his Realist aesthetic. It was executed as a woodcut on chine collé, a specialized technique where a thin sheet of fine paper is adhered to a heavier support sheet during the printing process. This medium allowed Millet to achieve a stark, graphic quality well suited to the somber subject matter. The piece is currently held in the collection of the Metropolitan Museum of Art.

The composition focuses intently on the physical struggle of the working class. A single figure, one of the many Men who populate Millet’s oeuvre, is shown hunched over in a desolate woodland. He is engaged in the arduous task of gathering felled branches from the surrounding Trees and binding them into a tight bundle, or faggot, for fuel. Millet emphasizes the physical geometry of the laborer’s effort, contrasting the heavy mass of his body with the fragile lines created by the woodcut tool. Unlike many of his contemporaries, Millet consistently elevated the daily routines of peasants and laborers to the status of high art, asserting the importance of their social role during a period of intense economic change in France.

While Millet is primarily known for his paintings like The Gleaners, this early experiment in the woodcut technique shows his versatility and interest in mass-reproducible forms. The deep blacks and sparse whites characteristic of this print intensify the solemn mood of the piece. As a significant example of 19th-century French prints, and residing within the Metropolitan Museum of Art’s extensive public domain collection, Woodcutter Making a Faggot continues to be studied for its technical brilliance and its profound social commentary regarding the human condition.