Shepherdess Knitting (La grande bergère)

On a vertical sheet, a woman in a headcloth and a long garment stands, rendered in fine brown lines. She leans on something like a long stick, and in the back on the left an animal that looks like a sheep and thin trees can be seen.

This is the culmination of the Shepherdess Knitting subject that began in 1855, and because of its size it is called the "large plate" (Grande). In the drawing, the expression of the knitting woman's hands and her gaze at them can be seen in fine detail, but in this print the details are lost in shading, suggesting that Millet tried to grasp the whole as a large mass.

Another feature is that the distance is drawn with finer lines than the foreground, an attempt to convey more depth than in the drawing. Millet moved to Barbizon in 1849 and painted works that entrusted a lyrical ideal to peasant life, and he also showed fine talent in etching and drawing.