Why it matters
Three peasant women stoop to glean stray stalks of wheat after the harvest. By showing the lowest ranks of rural society sympathetically, on a canvas size usually reserved for religious or mythological scenes, Millet disturbed the French upper classes.
Did you know?
- It was shown at the Salon of 1857.
- One critic saw in it 'the scaffolds of 1793'.
- Millet made a vertical painted version in 1854 and an etching in 1855.
Based on the Wikipedia article The Gleaners (CC BY-SA 4.0).
