Three Men Shearing Sheep in a Barn

In the early 1850s Millet was living at Barbizon with a growing family and very little money. One of the few people buying from him was William Morris Hunt, a young painter from Vermont who had come to France to study and ended up working beside Millet as his friend and pupil. Around 1853 Hunt bought this unfinished study from him, partly, the museum says, because he was dismayed at how poorly the family lived. It is shearing time in a barn. Two men bend over the fleece on the floor while a third, near the bright doorway, holds a sheep against his knee. Hunt copied the composition himself, to understand how the men were posed and how the light came in through the door. He later settled in Boston, where he taught painting and urged his students and friends to look at Millet. The study stayed with his family for nearly 150 years. His widow first lent it to the museum in 1890, and his grandson gave it in 2000.