c. 1840-41／Oil on canvas
59.0 x 47.0 cm
400 Years of Western Paintings – Masterpieces from Tokyo Fuji Art Museum –
Exhibition period：Saturday April 12～Sunday June 8, 2025
Nagoya City Art Museum (Aichi, Japan)
SUMMARY
Millet, who had an interest in painting from his early childhood, went to Cherbourg in 1833 and first studied painting with Paul Dumouchel, a portrait painter of David school. Two years later, he studied with Langlois, another Cherbourg painter and also a pupil of Gros. The following year, he went to Paris on a scholarship from the city of Cherbourg and entered the studio of Paul Delaroche, an academic painter. However, due to that he could not adapt himself to the apprenticeship in the classroom, Millet often went to the Louvre to copy the works there. His work Portrait of Madame Lefranc was selected for the first time for the Salon of 1840 and enabled him to start a career as a painter. That was when he was at the age of 26. He returned to Cherbourg to make a career for himself as a portrait painter. He soon received a commission from the Municipal Council of Cherbourg to paint a posthumous portrait of the former mayor and completed it. The Municipal Council, however, dissatisfied and refused to accept the portrait because it was too far from an idealized image of the former mayor. In the midst of success and failure mingled as a professional artist, Millet married his first wife, Pauline-Virginie Ono, in the autumn of 1841. The couple moved to Paris to make a new start, but it was uncertain if he would succeed. This portrait of a man, considered to have been painted during such a difficult time, depicts a cool but ingenuous expression of a long-haired man with thin mustaches and thin beards using the limited number of colors and simple touches of brush. Among the portraits he painted around the same time, the Self Portrait (1841; Musée d’art Thomas Henry, Cherbourg) is well known, and its style exhibits similar characteristics to this portrait. His signature largely written on the lower left is exactly the same type as that on Portrait of Monsieur Ouitre (1845; Private collection, Japan), and the clear and bold handwriting conveys his freshness. It is one of the earliest portraits by Millet, who later became famous as a peasant painter who represented the Barbizon school.
ARTIST
Jean-François Millet
1814-1875
List of artworks by the same artist
INFORMATION
Saturday, April 12 - Sunday, June 8, 2025
400 Years of Western Paintings – Masterpieces from Tokyo Fuji Art Museum – Nagoya City Art Museum (Aichi, Japan)
Friday, July 26 - Monday, September 23, 2024
400 Years of Western Paintings – Masterpieces from Tokyo Fuji Art Museum – Shizuoka City Museum of Art (Shizuoka, Japan)
Friday, July 28 - Sunday, August 27, 2023
Masterpieces of Modern Eastern and Western Painting Exhibition Ishikawa Prefectural Museum of Art (Ishikawa, Japan)
Saturday, September 17 - Sunday, November 20, 2022
400 Years of Western Paintings – Masterpieces from Tokyo Fuji Art Museum – Toyama Prefectural Museum of Art and Design (Toyama, Japan)
Saturday, July 16 - Sunday, September 4, 2022
Masterpieces from Tokyo Fuji Art Museum Kumamoto Prefectural Museum of Art (Kumamoto, Japan)
Saturday, March 19 - Sunday, May 8, 2022
Masterpieces of European Paintings From Tokyo Fuji Art Museum Collection Saga Prefectural Art Museum (Saga, Japan)
Saturday, October 23 - Sunday, December 26, 2021
The 400 Years of Western Painting: Masterpieces From Tokyo Fuji Art Museum Tochigi Prefectural Museum of Fine Arts (Tochigi, Japan)
Friday, July 9 - Sunday, August 29, 2021
400 Years of European Paintings: Masterpieces From Tokyo Fuji Art Museum Okayama Prefectural Museum of Art (Okayama, Japan)
Tuesday, December 15 - Sunday, January 31, 2021
How to Read Western Paintings: Masterpieces from Tokyo Fuji Art Museum Okinawa Prefectural Museum and Art Museum (Okinawa, Japan)
Saturday, September 12 - Tuesday, November 3, 2020
400 Years of Western Paintings: Masterpieces from Tokyo Fuji Art Museum Miyazaki Prefectural Art Museum (Miyazaki, Japan)
Wednesday, July 22 - Sunday, September 6, 2020
400 Years of Western Paintings: Masterpieces from Tokyo Fuji Art Museum Oita Prefectural Art Museum (Oita, Japan)
Thursday, February 20 - Sunday, April 12, 2020
How to Read Western Paintings: Masterpieces from Tokyo Fuji Art Museum The Museum of Modern Art, Ibaraki (Ibaraki, Japan)
Tuesday, September 3 - Tuesday, October 22, 2019
Masterpieces of European Paintings From Tokyo Fuji Art Museum Collection Yamaguchi Prefectural Art Museum (Yamaguchi, Japan)
Saturday, January 12 - Saturday, May 4, 2019
500 Years of Western Paintings: Collection of Tokyo Fuji Art Museum Shanghai PowerLong Museum (Shanghai, China)
Tuesday, October 23 - Sunday, December 23, 2018
500 Years of Western Paintings: Collection of Tokyo Fuji Art Museum Tsinghua University Art Museum (Beijing, China)
Saturday, September 29 - Sunday, November 4, 2012
The First Year of Fukushima Culture Restoration: Love, Life, Bond… Great Masters of Western Paintings -The 100 Masterpieces from the Collection of Tokyo Fuji Art Museum- Fukushima Prefectural Culture Center (Fukushima, Japan)
Saturday, October 24 - Sunday, December 20, 2009
The Intersection of Paintings and Photographs Nagoya City Art Museum (Aichi, Japan)
Saturday, August 1 - Sunday, September 27, 2009
The Intersection of Paintings and Photographs Matsumoto City Museum of Art (Nagano, Japan)
Saturday, June 6 - Monday, July 20, 2009
The Intersection of Paintings and Photographs Hiroshima Museum of Art (Hiroshima, Japan)
Saturday, April 4 - Sunday, May 24, 2009
The Intersection of Paintings and Photographs Sapporo Art Museum (Hokkaido, Japan)
Friday, January 30 - Wednesday, March 25, 2009
The Intersection of Paintings and Photographs Hokkaido Obihiro Museum of Art (Hokkaido, Japan)
Saturday, October 12 - Sunday, November 17, 2002
Painting and etching of modern France Tagawa Museum of Art (Fukuoka, Japan)
Saturday, August 10 - Sunday, October 6, 2002
Painting and etching of modern France Ueno Memorial Art Museum (Hyogo, Japan)
Saturday, June 8 - Sunday, July 7, 2002
Painting and etching of modern France Takehara Museum of Art (Hiroshima, Japan)
Saturday, April 27 - Sunday, June 2, 2002
Painting and etching of modern France The Tokushima Modern Art Museum (Tokushima, Japan)
Tuesday, October 14 - Sunday, November 30, 1997
Masterpieces of Western Oil Painting from the TFAM Collection Hong Kong Museum of Art (Hong Kong, China)
Saturday, November 3 - Sunday, December 2, 1990
Masterpieces of European Oil Painting Ho-Am Art Museum (Yongin-gun, Kyunggi-do, South Korea)
Saturday, September 22 - Sunday, October 21, 1990
Masterpieces of European Oil Painting Ho-Am Gallery (Seoul, South Korea)
Provenance: Mme. Marcelle Carlu, Paris
Literature: J. Mabire, “Il y a un mystère J.F. Millet,” Revue de la Manche, Ⅲ, no.10, 1961 L. Lepoittevin, Jean-François Millet portraitiste: essai et catalogue, Paris, 1971, no.33. Reproduced
EXPLORE
You can search and browse content on a platform across museums and archival institutions nationwide, and create My Gallery (online exhibition).
You can view the work in High-resolution.
The Official Navigator of the Tokyo Fuji Art Museum is voice-over artist, actress and vocalist Yoko Honna. She narrates the Japanese-language presentation and audio guidance segments of the works of Western paintings on display at our New Wing Permanent Gallery.
