''The Potato Harvest'' is an oil-on-canvas painting by the French artist

Jean-François Millet Jean-François Millet (; 4 October 1814 – 20 January 1875) was a French artist and one of the founders of the Barbizon school in rural France. Millet is noted for his paintings of peasant farmers and can be categorized as part of the Realism ...

, created in 1855. It is held at

The Walters Art Museum The Walters Art Museum, located in Mount Vernon-Belvedere, Baltimore, Maryland, United States, is a public art museum founded and opened in 1934. It holds collections established during the mid-19th century. The museum's collection was amassed ...

, in

Baltimore Baltimore ( , locally: or ) is the List of municipalities in Maryland, most populous city in the U.S. state of Maryland, fourth most populous city in the Mid-Atlantic (United States), Mid-Atlantic, and List of United States cities by popula ...

History

Jean-François Millet was raised in the area of France known as the old province of Normandy. He was brought up with hard out-of-door labor. After studying to become a painter, he devoted his art to illustrating peasants farming the land. His subjects were often taken from his surroundings or from memories from his youth.Estelle, M.H., Jean Francois Millet, Tredition, 2011, pp. 1-2, During the 1850s, Millet began incorporating his subjects into landscapes. ''The Potato Harvest'' is one of nine works which drew international acclaim at the Exposition Universelle in 1867.Johnston, W.R., Nineteenth Century Art: From Romanticism to Art Nouveau, The Walters Art Gallery, p.56,

Composition

''The Potato Harvest'' depicts peasants working in the plains between Barbizon and Chailly. It presents a theme representative of the peasants' struggle for survival. Millet's technique for this work incorporated paste-like pigments thickly applied over a coarsely textured canvas.

References

{{DEFAULTSORT:Potato Harvest, The 1855 paintings Paintings by Jean-François Millet Paintings in the collection of the Walters Art Museum Paintings of people Farming in art