Boys Gleaning

Collins's Boys Gleaning from around 1818 depicts children gathering the remnants of the grain harvest left in fields after the main harvest—the ancient right of gleaning that was one of the traditional welfare provisions of the pre-enclosure agricultural system. The gleaning subject had biblical resonance through the story of Ruth, which Collins's educated audience would have recognized, and a social resonance through the ongoing debates about agricultural poverty and the rights of the rural poor that were intensifying in the late eighteenth and early nineteenth centuries. The children's gleaning rather than adult gleaning moderated the social criticism with the innocence of childhood observation that was Collins's characteristic approach to rural labor subjects.

The post-harvest field creates a golden, warm backdrop against which the boys' figures are silhouetted. Collins renders the stubble field with attention to the specific textures and colors of recently harvested grain. The late summer light creates the warm, golden atmosphere characteristic of harvest-time paintings.