Woman Sewing beside her Sleeping Child

On 14 March 1860 Millet signed a contract with the Belgian dealer Arthur Stevens. For three years he was to be paid 1,000 francs a month, and in return his whole output of paintings and drawings would go to Stevens, who had taken a Paris dealer, Ennemond Blanc, into partnership to share the risk. The museum's record finds this small panel with Blanc and Stevens in 1862, and dates it to about 1858 to 1862. It is night in a cottage. A young mother in a dark cap and a blue-green bodice sits sewing a heavy white garment in her lap, drawing the thread up with one hand. Beside her a child sleeps in a low bed under white covers. Between them a small oil lamp hangs from a wooden post, and its flame is the only light in the room.