Jean-François Millet (French, 1814-1875)

Jean-François Millet painted Hagar and Ishmael in the Desert in 1847-48, as he searched for biblical and historical themes that would support his interest in realistic figure painting and contemporary social problems. At the same time as he created this image of the Old Testament slave girl and her child banished into the wilderness, Millet was also painting abandoned mothers sheltering children along modern highways.

Millet took up the Hagar theme for his first government commission (from the short-lived republican regime of 1848); and it is likely this small panel served as the sketch Millet would have submitted in support of his application. The ultimate version of the subject (The Hague, Museum Mesdag, fig. 1) separates the figures of Hagar and her son.

This painting has been largely lost to public history since its sale in the collection of Alfred Sensier, a bureaucrat in the French arts establishment who befriended Millet during the late 1840s and went on to become one of his closest friends.

We are grateful to Alexandra Murphy for authenticating this work and for her assistance in cataloguing this lot.