Print collector's quarterly (4.1914)

best possible männer for its final presentation. Among
the Museum drawings, The Sower agrees in its gen-
eral movement and lines with his well-known paint-
ings and unique lithograph of the same subjeet. It
was probably done after some fresh observation of
nature, and the movement, especially that of the right
arm swung back to the momentary point of rigidity
that precedes its rhythmic return as it flings the
grain, has been expressed with marked intensity. The
arm, as it is drawn here, might seem almost too large
and heavy, but Mill et feit that it was the most impor-
tant agent in sowing by hand and sought to give it
a maximum of strength. This drawing was probably
an early essay of the subjeet, for though the hillside
at the back is suggested by a few lines, there is no
indication yet of the man and team harrowing-in the
grain that appear in later versions. A few free touches
indicate the flock of crows in the sky to the left, Sym-
bols of the dependent and opposing forces that gener-
ally accompany the bread-winner’s toil. The figure is
clothed as an ordinary Barbizon peasant, with the
drapery less tightly drawn to the body than in the
well-known paintings and lithograph of the subjeet,
and which lends to these a more sculpturesque and
archaic air. This drawing was used also in Millet’s
pastel showing the plain of Barbizon and the Tower
of Chailly in the distance as a more ample background
to the sower, and of which an engraving in facsimile
has been published.
The drawing of the Shepherdess Knüting was made
from nature, and bears a direct relation to Millet’s
etching of the subjeet. It was a study of certain facts
necessary for his final composition of La Grande Ber-

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