Peasant Woman of Burgundy

Peasant Woman of Burgundy is an undated oil on canvas held at the Bowes Museum. While Millet is primarily associated with the Île-de-France region around Barbizon and with his native Normandy, his interest in the diversity of French rural life extended to other regions, and a Burgundian peasant subject reflects the broader ambition of his project to document and dignify the lives of the rural poor across France. The Bowes Museum in County Durham, England — founded by John Bowes and his wife Joséphine Benoite Coffin-Chevallier — holds an important collection of French art assembled in France during the nineteenth century, making it an unusual and significant repository for this type of work in Britain.

Oil on canvas with the warm, earthy palette and monumental figure treatment characteristic of Millet's approach to female rural subjects. Regional peasant costume, if depicted with specificity, would distinguish this figure from his more generic pastoral subjects and connect the image to Millet's interest in the documented diversity of French rural dress.