François Millet 1851–1917
NG 6253 
The Church at Arbonne

Sarah Herring, 2019

Extracted from:
Sarah Herring, The Nineteenth Century French Paintings (London: National Gallery Company and Yale University Press, 2019).

1870–80

Oil on canvas, 36.8 × 44.7 cm

Signed lower right corner: F. Millet, and underneath a word, now illegible (a date, or more likely ‘fils’?)

Support

The canvas is lined, and the stretcher is possibly original. There are pinholes in each of the four corners. On the back are fragments of paper with the following inscription: ‘des environs de/Fontainebleau par / …llet f[ils]…’. There is also a fragment of newspaper on the back, with the following text: ‘… even the Millet gallery, about whi… out Paris lately raved for weeks, wa…. worth seeing from an art point of … Millet unquestionably drew and …ed like no one else, but his labours … confined within a comparatively short…’.

Materials and Technique

The X‐radiograph (fig. 1) reveals another picture underneath the final composition, possibly an upright landscape, and presumably by the same hand. If the present picture is turned anticlockwise to a vertical position there appears to be a horizon line running roughly centrally, just to the left of the church, above which is a broadly painted sky. In the middle, just above the present church tower, a large rounded dark shape may be read as a tree. To the left, a further possible small tree and a long rectangular shape, possibly a building, lie on the horizon. In the infrared reflectogram an unexplained loose diamond shape is visible in the foreground, just left of centre.

The painting has a complex paint layer structure which is consistent with the reworking described above.¹ For example, a sample from the present sky in the top right‐hand corner has revealed that above the preparation layers is a pale blue paint layer (the sky of the underlying painting) containing lead white and cerulean blue,² followed by two opaque layers of paint, the first bright yellow (mainly yellow earth) and the second a bright red (a mixture of vermilion, red earth and red lake). These bright opaque layers have been interpreted as colours to block out the first composition in preparation for the subsequent layers. The sky that we see on the picture surface consists of wet‐in‐wet layers of grey and blue paint, which are composed of mixtures of lead white, cobalt blue, black and a little cadmium yellow and yellow earth. The sky of the two compositions is painted using different blue pigments, the final composition making use of the more common cobalt blue and the earlier composition using cerulean blue. While the latter pigment has been found on a number of paintings by Corot in the collection, it was in general much less frequently used by artists associated with the Barbizon school.

A sample from the foreground meadow on the right‐hand edge is made up of three layers of green; a middle layer of khaki green is sandwiched between two layers of light green. All three layers contain coarse particles of viridian. The layers below the green paint relate to the previous composition: a bright yellow (mainly yellow earth), a thin yellow‐green (opaque yellow and viridian) and then in the lowest layer, the same pale blue of the previous sky (lead white and cerulean blue). Surface examination has revealed, at the top left corner, a reddish‐brown paint visible under the present sky. A further, paler, reddish brown is visible under the cloud, top right centre.

Medium analysis identified heat‐bodied poppy oil as the paint binder in samples taken from the brown‐green foliage, the green grass and the white cloud.

The brushwork is fairly loose throughout. In the church tower a mottled effect is created by the overlaying of wavy strokes in cream over a light grey. A very light cream paint is also used to highlight such features as the line of a roof, helping to convey the sense of direct sunlight. The trees are painted in numerous small touches of greens and browns, whereas the broader expanses of grass and sky are painted quite smoothly, with horizontal strokes. The sky is brought round the church buildings and the trees. The church tower and weather vane were originally painted slightly to the left and their original positions are visible to the naked eye.

Conservation and Condition

NG 6253 was cleaned and restored in 1978–9. There is some wear that has been retouched in the sky.

Discussion

A path leads across a grassy meadow to a church. To the left a figure in a red cap pastures two cows, and several chickens or ducks are scattered on the grass. To the right of an archway a waggon stands against the wall, its wheel picked out in a bluish‐grey paint, which is also used more extensively in this area. Further to the right a graveyard is visible over a low wall.

NG 6253 has been identified by Alexandra Murphy as a painting by Millet’s son, François Millet (1851–1917).³ A pupil of his father, he emulated the elder Millet’s subject matter, specialising in genre, landscape, still life and portraits. Paintings by his hand usually bear a standard signature: ‘F. Millet fils’, which is what the signature here most probably reads. In addition, the fragments of inscription on the back imply that the picture is by the son rather than the father.⁴

Alexandra Murphy has also identified the church as the Norman church at Arbonne (now Arbonne‐la‐forêt), a village to the south‐west of Barbizon. A preliminary drawing forms part of a portfolio of drawings by François Millet (fig. 2), and a related painting signed ‘F. Millet, fils’, entitled Church at Arbonne, depicts the same scene (fig. 3).⁵ The image can be related to Jean‐François Millet’s Church at Gréville (1871–4; fig. 4), of which François Millet painted a copy (also dated between 1871 and 1874; fig. 5), perhaps at the same period, as a response to the father’s work.⁶

Provenance

In the collection of Clara Sophia Jessup Bloomfield Moore (1824–1899); her sale, Christie’s, 5 May 1900, lot 25, bought Cliff for £31;⁷ with the Fine Art Society, London, [page 403] January 1938 from whom bought by Sir Victor Alexander Augustus Henry Wellesley (1876–1954) in the same year;⁸ bequeathed by Wellesley to the Gallery in 1954.⁹

Former Owners: Bloomfield Moore and Wellesley

Clara Sophia Jessup Bloomfield Moore was a novelist and writer on etiquette from Philadelphia.¹⁰ At his death in 1878 her husband left her a fortune amassed in a paper‐manufacturing firm that he had formed with her father. She subsequently spent a period of time travelling in Europe, and many of her later years in London. According to her obituary in the New York Times (6 January 1899) she became friendly with Benjamin Disraeli (1804–1881) while living in London, who advised her to collect living artists’ work, and it is likely that she bought this painting in London. Sir Victor Wellesley KCMG, CB, had a career in the Foreign Office and was made Deputy Under‐Secretary of State in the Foreign Office in 1925. He was also an amateur painter of landscapes and portraits who frequently exhibited at the Royal Academy.

Exhibitions

On long‐term loan to the Arts Council of Great Britain, Walker Art Gallery, Liverpool, from 5 May 1958 to 8 March 1963 .

Literature

Davies and Gould 1970, p. 103; Kirby, Spring and Higgitt 2007, p. 91.

Notes