Pencil on paper. 23.5 x 15 cm (9 1/4 x 5 7/8 in.) Stamped with initials 'J.F.M' (Lugt 1460), lower right, recto. In fine condition, tipped at edges to a period decorative French mat with gilt detailing.

Millet made many beautiful drawings intended for collectors - "well turned-out drawings" Millet would write - but his oeuvre also includes a large number of sketches, studies of nature, first thoughts jotted down in a notebook. They were found in his studio and sold at auction after Millet's death in 1875 and after that of his widow in 1894. Sketches such as the present example were likely made in the open air, in notebooks, works rooted in his profound love of nature, particularly of forests, which he revealed in his letters on occasion, in a savage, almost violent lyricism. Millet's drawings, like his engravings, had a significant influence on the generation of avant-garde artists that emerged in the 1870s-1880s - Edgar Degas, Camille Pissarro, Georges Seurat, Paul Gauguin or Vincent Van Gogh -,as well as on the official proponents of academic naturalism - Jules Breton and Léon Lhermitte.