Jean-François Millet (Gruchy 1814-1875 Barbizon)

Drawn with crisply handled red chalk, this drawing is an important record of Millet's early activity as a draftsman and interest in old masters. The artist focused on a tight close up of the young Raphael's masterpiece — which was purchased by National Gallery of London in 1839 — by cropping most of the saint's body and focusing only on her gaze, selectively highlighted with touches of white chalk. According to Sensier, Millet owned postcards reproducing Raphael's paintings, as further attested by a letter sent in April 1865 to his friend Feuardent in Rome, where he advised him not to buy 'anything of Raphael [meaning postcards], he is to be found in Paris' (Jean-François Millet. Peasant and Painter, London, 1881, p. 180). The drawing's vibrant technique closely relates to another early sheet of religious subject, a study for Saint Jerome sold recently (Christie's, Paris, 21 March 2018, lot 120).

Fig. 1. Raphael, Saint Catherine of Alexandria. London, The National Gallery.