Collection in Focus: The Frick's Millets

Between 1897 and 1908, Henry Clay Frick acquired an exceptional collection of works on paper by influential Realist Jean-François Millet (French, 1814–1875). Left to his daughter, Helen Clay Frick, at his death, these works form a collection second in America only to that at the Museum of Fine Arts, Boston. Because of the fragility of the pastel medium and the inherent sensitivity of works on paper to light exposure, these works in the Frick’s collection spend about 75% of their time in storage. They were lasted exhibited publicly as part of our 2016–2017 exhibition The Frick Collects: From Rubens to Monet.

Jean-François Millet, Resting in the Shade, c. 19th century. Pastel on paper.

The drawings, purchased between 1897 and 1899, were originally part of the Frick’s home here in Pittsburgh and hung in the reception room at Clayton. Photographs of the reception room c. 1900 show three of the Millets arranged salon style amid examples of French Barbizon paintings. Three drawings purchased in 1904 were hung in the Frick’s New York apartment at Sherry’s Hotel. All of the drawings were eventually moved, however, to the family’s summer home, Eagle Rock, on the North Shore of Massachusetts, where they were kept from around 1906 to 1936.

Reception room at Clayton. Photographed by Lewis Stepany. Courtesy of The Frick Collection/Frick Art Reference Library Archives.

In addition to the drawings, Henry Clay Frick also purchased, in 1906, one oil canvas by Millet, Woman Sewing by Lamplight, which is now part of The Frick Collection in New York City. Since the drawings were kept at Eagle Rock, they were inherited, along with the home and the rest of the its contents, by Frick’s daughter, Helen, upon his death in 1919. In the 1950s, when Helen began to make plans to open Clayton as a historic home, she brought the drawing collection to Pittsburgh and hung them in the reception room at Clayton, as she remembered them from her youth. (Helen would raze Eagle Rock in 1969, bringing most of the home’s contents and its fearsome brick-columned gates, which now edge our parking lot, home to Pittsburgh.)

Jean-François Millet, Gleaner Returning Home with Her Grain, c. 1857–1862. Black conté crayon on paper.

At some point in their history, the drawings were removed from their original gilt mats. In a 1998 conservation project, they were installed in eight-ply gilt mats with microclimate frame packages, to provide a stable environment for the delicate media and to replicate period framing. In the 1990s, the Frick was fortunate to receive donations that allowed us to purchase the study for The Departure (La Sortie), deepening our collection.

Jean-François Millet, Study for the Departure (La Sortie), c. 1860. Charcoal on Paper. Purchased by The Frick Pittsburgh in 1995.

Jean-François Millet, The Departure (La Sortie), c. 1860–2. Crayon and pastel on paper.

While the Millets remain in storage at the moment, four of these exceptional works have been digitized in super-high-resoultion as part of our collaboration with Madpixel, and are available to view on our beta collection app through the end of November 2019. Don't miss your chance to glimpse these stunning drawings in ultra-fine detail!