{"type":"artobject","objectid":3656,"objectnumber":"x1941-163","sortnumber":"1941 163x","displaytitle":"La Lessiveuse (The Lye-Washer)","department":"Prints and Drawings","classification":"Drawings","datebegin":1852,"dateend":1853,"datecomputed":1852,"daterange":"A.D. 1850-1900","displaydate":"ca. 1852–53","medium":"Black chalk with stumping, heightened with white","dimensions":"43.5 x 32.5 cm (17 1/8 x 12 13/16 in.)","dimensionsproposed":"","creditline":"Gift of Frank Jewett Mather Jr.","markings":null,"inscribed":null,"signed":"Signed in black chalk, bottom right: J. F. Millet","catalograisonne":null,"creditlinerepro":"","restrictions":null,"nowebuse":"False","secondaryobjectnumber":null,"campuscollections":"false","on_view":false,"accessionyear":"1941-01-01","newaccession":0,"titles":[],"makers":[{"id":3766,"displayname":"Jean-François Millet","displaydate":"1814–1875; born Gruchy, France; died Barbizon, France","datebegin":1814,"dateend":1875,"prefix":null,"suffix":null,"role":"Artist","displaymaker":"Jean-François Millet, 1814–1875; born Gruchy, France; died Barbizon, France","displayorder":1}],"depicted":[],"texts":[{"texttype":"Online","textpurpose":"Provenance","textentryhtml":"
H. Atger; Defoer (Petit Palais, May 22, 1886, no. 50; reproduced); F.O. Matthiessen (A.A.A., New York, April 2, 1902, no. 107); Joseph Pulitzer (A.A.A., New York, Jan. 10, 1929, no. 10; repr.); G.W. Eccles; Frank Jewett Mather, Jr.;
\n
","remarks":"From accession card. See files for letter of July, 1974, from Prof. Robert L. Herbert, Yale University, providing information that subsequently appeared in his published catalogue.;"},{"texttype":"Online","textpurpose":"Gallery Label","textentryhtml":"Early in the 1850s Jean-François Millet developed his mature style in scenes that paid homage to rural peasants absorbed in their daily labors. Here Millet describes the leaching process that produces lye from wood ashes. In this drawing, a stolid woman carefully filters water through a cloth covered vat that would have been filled with layers of gravel, straw, and hard-wood ash, collecting the lye water below. Behind her, a cauldron hanging over a brisk fi re presumably contains rendered animal fat, into which she will stir the solution to make soap. A preparatory study for a painting now in the Louvre, this large drawing is a good example of the artist’s meticulous graphic style, in which every nuance of the humble scene is recorded in an unemotional, workman-like manner.","remarks":"K5-6_Fall2012.pdf"},{"texttype":"Online","textpurpose":"Handbook Entry","textentryhtml":"\r\nIn the early 1850s, Jean-François Millet developed his realist style in peasant scenes that often featured village or country women engaged in forms of solitary labor. Here, he represents not the washing of laundry but the leaching process that produces lye, an alkaline solution of potash traditionally used as a detergent and ingredient for soap. The stolid peasant woman pours boiling water from a cauldron into a cloth-lined barrel presumably filled with wood ash. The lye solution produced as the water filters through the ash pours from a spout into a smaller container below. Thoroughly absorbed in her work and placed iconically in the center of the composition, the solitary lye-washer has little sentimental or anecdotal appeal, her features muted and expressionless. Millet concentrates on describing her bodily action, both steady and tentative as she balances her right arm with her left and leans over the barrel, carefully avoiding any direct contact with the ash and steam. \r\nAlthough this large-format drawing functioned as a preparatory study for a painting in the Louvre (ca. 1852–53), it is also a meticulously crafted work in its own right, exhibiting Millet’s refined, variegated graphic technique and mastery of subtle value relations. ","remarks":null}],"media":[{"id":14414,"uri":"https://media.artmuseum.princeton.edu/iiif/3/collection/x1941-163","isprimary":1,"rank":1,"mediatypeid":1,"mediaviewtype":"(not assigned)","restrictions":null,"caption":"Luna Digitization Project"}],"hasimage":"true","bibliography":[{"boilertext":"Princeton University Art Museum: Handbook of the Collections (Princeton, NJ: Princeton University Art Museum, 2013)","citation":"Princeton University Art Museum: Handbook of the Collections (Princeton, NJ: Princeton University Art Museum, 2013), p. 335","date":2013,"id":1994,"uri":"https://search.worldcat.org/title/865020505"},{"boilertext":"Louis Soullie, Peintures, aquarelles, pastels, dessins de Jean-François Millet, relevés dans les catalogues de ventes de 1849 à 1900, (Paris: L. Soullié, 1900).","citation":"Louis Soullie, Peintures, aquarelles, pastels, dessins de Jean-François Millet, relevés dans les catalogues de ventes de 1849 à 1900, (Paris: L. Soullié, 1900)., p. 133","date":1900,"id":4692,"uri":"https://search.worldcat.org/title/1948546"},{"boilertext":"Robert L Herbert, Michel Laclotte and Roseline Bacou, Jean-Francois Millet: [exhibition], Hayward Gallery, 22 January-7 March 1976, (London: Arts Council of Great Britian, 1976).","citation":"Robert L Herbert, Michel Laclotte and Roseline Bacou, Jean-Francois Millet: [exhibition], Hayward Gallery, 22 January-7 March 1976, (London: Arts Council of Great Britian, 1976)., no. 49","date":1976,"id":5245,"uri":"https://search.worldcat.org/title/2966470"},{"boilertext":"19th and 20th century French drawings from the Art Museum, Princeton University: an introduction, (Princeton, NJ: Distributed by Princeton University Press, 1972).","citation":"19th and 20th century French drawings from the Art Museum, Princeton University: an introduction, (Princeton, NJ: Distributed by Princeton University Press, 1972)., p. 94, cat. no. 64","date":1972,"id":5277,"uri":"https://search.worldcat.org/title/886677081"},{"boilertext":"L. Roger-Miles, Le paysan dans l'oeuvre de J.F. Millet, (Paris: G. Petit, 1895).","citation":"L. Roger-Miles, Le paysan dans l'oeuvre de J.F. Millet, (Paris: G. Petit, 1895)., unpaginated (illus.)","date":1895,"id":5286,"uri":"https://search.worldcat.org/title/697959643"},{"boilertext":"Walther Gensel, Millet und Rousseau, (Bielefeld; Leipzig: Velhagen & Klasing, 1902).","citation":"Walther Gensel, Millet und Rousseau, (Bielefeld; Leipzig: Velhagen & Klasing, 1902)., (illus.)","date":1902,"id":5287,"uri":"https://search.worldcat.org/title/813411"},{"boilertext":" Gustave Geffroy, Arsène Alexandre and Frederick Keppel, Corot and Millet, (London; New York: Studio, Ltd., 1902).","citation":" Gustave Geffroy, Arsène Alexandre and Frederick Keppel, Corot and Millet, (London; New York: Studio, Ltd., 1902)., (illus.)","date":1902,"id":5288,"uri":"https://search.worldcat.org/title/491530131"},{"boilertext":"Arthur Hoeber, The Barbizon painters: being the story of the men of thirty, (New York: Frederick A. Stokes Co., 1915).","citation":"Arthur Hoeber, The Barbizon painters: being the story of the men of thirty, (New York: Frederick A. Stokes Co., 1915)., opp. p. 30 (illus.)","date":1915,"id":5289,"uri":"https://search.worldcat.org/title/1593590"},{"boilertext":"Jean-Francois Millet, (Paris: Grand Palais?, 1976).","citation":"Jean-Francois Millet, (Paris: Grand Palais?, 1976)., p. 115, no. 73 (illus.)","date":1976,"id":5290,"uri":"https://search.worldcat.org/title/38628844"},{"boilertext":"Princeton University Art Museum: Handbook of the Collection (New Haven, CT: Yale University Press, 2007)","citation":"Princeton University Art Museum: Handbook of the Collection (New Haven, CT: Yale University Press, 2007), p. 283 (illus.)","date":2007,"id":474,"uri":"https://search.worldcat.org/title/191864564"}],"exhibitions":[{"exhibitionid":1033,"citation":"European Drawings from Neo-Classicism to Impressionism (Tuesday, December 04, 1990 - Sunday, January 06, 1991)","isvirtual":true,"begindate":"1990-12-04","enddate":"1991-01-06","uri":"https://artmuseum.princeton.edu/art/exhibitions/1033"}],"geography":[],"terms":[{"id":2031609,"term":"French","aatid":300111188,"termtype":"Culture"},{"id":2166053,"term":"soap (organic material)","aatid":300014329,"termtype":"Subject"},{"id":2188680,"term":"chalk drawings","aatid":null,"termtype":"Classification"},{"id":2088280,"term":"women","aatid":300025943,"termtype":"Subject"},{"id":2135122,"term":"fires","aatid":300068986,"termtype":"Subject"},{"id":2091870,"term":"peasants","aatid":300230852,"termtype":"Subject"},{"id":2055657,"term":"figures (representations)","aatid":300189808,"termtype":"Subject"},{"id":2131783,"term":"kerchiefs","aatid":300046122,"termtype":"Subject"},{"id":2073176,"term":"cauldrons","aatid":300196395,"termtype":"Subject"},{"id":2073254,"term":"jugs","aatid":300045685,"termtype":"Subject"},{"id":2044353,"term":"wove paper","aatid":300014187,"termtype":"Materials"},{"id":2153720,"term":"heightening","aatid":300053418,"termtype":"Techniques"},{"id":2153317,"term":"stumping","aatid":300053412,"termtype":"Techniques"},{"id":2160324,"term":"black chalk","aatid":300080058,"termtype":"Materials"}],"classifications":[{"id":2188680,"classification":"chalk drawings"}],"cultures":[],"cultureterms":[{"id":2031609,"culture":"French"}],"periods":[],"periodterms":[],"attribute_groups":[{"id":2199321,"term":"European Art","termtype":"Collecting Area"},{"id":2199327,"term":"Prints and Drawings","termtype":"Collecting Area"}],"dimensionelements":[{"element":"Overall","type":"Height","units":"centimeters","dimension":"43.50"},{"element":"Overall","type":"Width","units":"centimeters","dimension":"32.50"}],"packages":[{"packageid":182970,"name":"P&D_Drawings_Watercolors"},{"packageid":197269,"name":"web_highlights -revised 2021"},{"packageid":207234,"name":"SAB_Gala2021"},{"packageid":195742,"name":"PUAM_Drawings from the Collections"}],"primaryimage":["https://media.artmuseum.princeton.edu/iiif/3/collection/x1941-163"],"displaymaker":"Jean-François Millet, 1814–1875; born Gruchy, France; died Barbizon, France","displayculture":null,"displayperiod":null,"caption":"Jean-François Millet (1814–1875; born Gruchy, France; died Barbizon, France), La Lessiveuse (The Lye-Washer), ca. 1852–53. Black chalk with stumping, heightened with white; 43.5 x 32.5 cm. Gift of Frank Jewett Mather Jr. (x1941-163)","captionhtml":"Jean-François Millet (1814–1875; born Gruchy, France; died Barbizon, France), La Lessiveuse (The Lye-Washer), ca. 1852–53. Black chalk with stumping, heightened with white; 43.5 x 32.5 cm. Gift of Frank Jewett Mather Jr. (x1941-163)","published_date":"2026-02-11 07:29:43.475359","campusart":[{"campuscollections":"false","campusart":0,"neighborhood":null,"lat":null,"lon":null}],"extended_content":false}