Title: Louise-Antoinette

Artist: François Millet

Portrait of Louise-Antoinette Feuardent 1841 Jean-François Millet French, Gruchy 1814–Barbizon 1875 Oil on canvas Originally intended for private display in the Feuardent family home, this restrained, sober portrait depicts the wife of Millet's lifelong friend Félix-Bienaimé Feuardent, a clerk in the library of Cherbourg, in the artist's native Normandy. Posing for Millet shortly after her marriage, Louise-Antoinette would subsequently bear fourteen children, one of whom would marry the artist's eldest daughter Marie. By that point, Millet had achieved international recognition as a painter of peasant life, his humble beginnings as a provincial portraitist long behind him.