description The Gleaners Overview
The Gleaners is an 1857 oil painting by Jean-François Millet, now in the Musée d'Orsay in Paris. It shows three rural women bending to gather leftover stalks of grain after a harvest, a form of labor associated with poverty and subsistence. Millet gave the workers substantial physical presence while placing them against a distant, abundant harvest, making the picture an important example of nineteenth-century French Realism.
insights Ranking position
The Gleaners ranks #58 of 160 in the Painting ranking, behind Portrait of Dr. Gachet, ahead of The Japanese Footbridge.
help The Gleaners FAQ
What are the three women doing in The Gleaners?
They are collecting individual stalks of grain left after the main harvest, a practice known as gleaning. Millet shows the women repeatedly bending toward the ground while prosperous haystacks and workers remain in the distance.
Why was The Gleaners controversial in 1857?
Its monumental treatment of poor rural laborers unsettled some viewers at the Paris Salon of 1857. After the political upheavals of 1848, affluent audiences could read Millet's three foreground workers as a troubling image of rural poverty.
Where did Millet set The Gleaners?
Millet drew on agricultural life around Chailly, near the Barbizon artists' colony in France. The distant harvest contrasts organized abundance with the small remnants available to the gleaners.
Where can The Gleaners be seen today?
The painting is held by the Musée d'Orsay in Paris. It is displayed as a major example of French Realism alongside nineteenth-century works by artists such as Courbet.
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