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Portrait of Narcisse Virgile Diaz de la Peña
Jean-François Millet (French, 1814–1875)
1848
- Medium
- black chalk with heightening in pale green-blue chalk
- Classification
- Drawing
- Dimensions
- Sheet: 61.4 x 48.7 cm (24 3/16 x 19 3/16 in.)
- Culture
- France, 19th century
- Museum
- Cleveland Museum of Art, Drawings
- Credit line
- John L. Severance Fund
- Rights
- Public domain (CC0), as the museum states it.
- Who can see it
- Tweens profiles and older: its subjects are known and suit older children. How works are placed
View at the Cleveland Museum of Art
About this work
Jean-François Millet executed this boldly drawn life-sized portrait at an early point in his career when he had very little money and his paintings would not sell. Another artist had suggested he make drawings to trade for clothing, and this example belongs to a group of four chalk portraits of artist colleagues that Millet sold together for only twenty French francs (about three dollars). The sitter, Narcisse Virgile Diaz de la Peña, became known for his thickly painted, luminous and colorful landscapes. In this impressively large portrait of Diaz, Millet used the black chalk in a broad yet accurate manner to describe the sitter's curly hair, bushy beard, and brows. A few touches of light-colored chalk provide a highlight on the collar, and the shadow across part of the face adds expression to Diaz's slightly furrowed brow and direct gaze.
