Sunlight shines into a darkened barn illuminating chickens and a dozing flock of sheep. After gaining popularity in Paris for his illustrations and caricatures, Charles-Émile Jacque moved with Jean-François Millet to the French town of Barbizon in 1849. The painter, who also aspired to poultry farming, began producing oil paintings in earnest, using farm animals as motifs. At the time, animals were commonly depicted in historical paintings, portraits, and landscape paintings as a subordinate motif. Hence Jacque’s decision to make them and mundane farm life the primary subject of his paintings took courage. This painting was originally in the collection of Matsukata Kojiro, the first president of Kawasaki Dockyard. After that it was acquired by Sakata Takeo, the founder of Sakata Seed Corporation, and then donated to Yokohama City in 1983, before the opening of the Yokohama Museum of Art.
(KATADA Yuko)
Sunlight shines into a darkened barn illuminating chickens and a dozing flock of sheep. After gaining popularity in Paris for his illustrations and caricatures, Charles-Émile Jacque moved with Jean-François Millet to the French town of Barbizon in 1849. The painter, who also aspired to poultry farming, began producing oil paintings in earnest, using farm animals as motifs. At the time, animals were commonly depicted in historical paintings, portraits, and landscape paintings as a subordinate motif. Hence Jacque’s decision to make them and mundane farm life the primary subject of his paintings took courage. This painting was originally in the collection of Matsukata Kojiro, the first president of Kawasaki Dockyard. After that it was acquired by Sakata Takeo, the founder of Sakata Seed Corporation, and then donated to Yokohama City in 1983, before the opening of the Yokohama Museum of Art.
(KATADA Yuko)