The Angelus

The Angelus is an oil painting by French painter Jean-François Millet, completed between 1857 and 1859.

The painting depicts two peasants bowing in a field over a basket of potatoes to say a prayer, the Angelus, that together with the ringing of the bell from the church on the horizon marks the end of a day's work.Millet was commissioned by the American would-be painter and art collector Thomas Gold Appleton, who never came to collect it. The painting is famous today for driving the prices for artworks of the Barbizon school up to record amounts in the late 19th century.

History Millet said: "The idea for The Angelus came to me because I remembered that my grandmother, hearing the church ...