Young Woman

A young woman in a dark dress and cap sits turned toward the viewer, her hands folded in her lap, painted with the warm, solid modelling and quiet dignity that would make Jean-François Millet the great interpreter of rural French life. He painted this early figure study in 1844–45, years before the famous scenes of the fields, when he was still forming the naturalistic style that the critics of his day called Realism; the picture retains the intimate, unidealised directness of his portraits of the common people. The canvas came to the Art Institute of Chicago in 1922 with the Potter Palmer Collection. The painting is held in the Art Institute of Chicago.