Morning Toilette

This delicately executed study in crayon and pastel of Millet's daughter, getting dressed in the soft light shining through the window panes, brings to mind Johannes Vermeer's views of young women in Dutch interiors. Vermeer, who was "rediscovered" in this period by a French historian, was one of a number of previously overlooked seventeenth-century painters of everyday life who in the mid nineteenth century began to attract greater attention from artists, scholars, and curators.

Millet uses conté crayon embellished with hints of blue and yellow pastel to capture the grey light of morning. Millet painted other scenes of relaxation, but these typically contrasted the resting figures with their role as laborers. Here, however, he has portrayed one of his daughters in a private moment of personal attention, devoid of any reference to her work or position within the family.

This departure may reflect the influence of Dutch genre painting. One of Millet’s friends, the art critic Théophile Thoré, acquired Vermeer's Woman with a Pearl Necklace the same year that Millet produced this pastel. In both works, the woman stands in front of a window, attending to her toilette as the soft natural light illuminates the space around her. Despite these compositional similarities, the simplicity of Millet’s interior stays true to the modest nature of peasant life.