First Steps (c. 1859–66): Art, History and Details

First Steps (c. 1859–66) is in the Cleveland Museum of Art collection. The museum's creator attribution is Jean-François Millet (French, 1814–1875).

The work and its context

The museum's open-access catalogue describes the work:

In the 1860s Jean-François Millet began to add pastel to his black chalk drawings of peasants and rural life, with the hope that the addition of color would make his monochromatic drawings more marketable. Between 1865 and 1869, he worked almost exclusively in pastel, producing more than 100 works. The taste for “enhanced” or “pastelled drawings,” as Millet described them, grew among collectors and artists, and inspired a revival of the medium in the 1870s and 1880s. Here, in a fenced-in garden behind a house, parents encourage their child to walk for the first time. Delicate passages of blue, green, yellow, and red enliven the composition.

Object facts

• Title: First Steps
• Date: c. 1859–66
• Creator attribution: Jean-François Millet (French, 1814–1875)
• Culture: France, 19th century
• Type: Drawing
• Technique: black chalk and pastel on beige laid paper
• Dimensions: Sheet: 29.5 x 45.9 cm (11 5/8 x 18 1/16 in.); Secondary Support: 36 x 50.9 cm (14 3/16 x 20 1/16 in.)
• Collection: DR - French
• Department: Drawings
• Accession number: 1962.407

A detail from the museum

At the time this drawing was made, many critics disparaged Millet's depictions of peasants as politically radical.

Collection credit

Gift of Mrs. Thomas H. Jones, Sr.

Further reading listed by the museum

• Millet, Van Gogh. Exh. Cat. Paris: Musée d'Orsay, 1998.
• Hitchcock, Ripley. "Millet and the Children." St. Nicholas 14, no. 3 (January 1887): 166-178.
• Soullié, Louis. Peintures, aquarelles, pastels, dessins de Jean-François Millet relevés dans les catalogues de ventes de 1849 à 1900. Paris: Librairie spéciale des catalogues de ventes annotés, 1900.

View the collection record

See the museum's photographs and full catalogue entry. Catalogue text is reproduced from the Cleveland Museum of Art's open-access data, with HTML formatting removed. This object and its supplied image are designated CC0.