One of the founders of the Barbizon School in rural France, Jean-François Millet is noted for illustrations of country life—making this direct image of hard physical labor atypical. Rather than portraits of specific individuals, they likely represent archetypes, meant to embody the difficult realities that faced French laborers and farm workers. The artist described such figures as “bent beneath the tyranny of the soil and the relentless toil that it demands.” As their shovels plunge into the earth, their furrowed brows, bent backs, and bare hands reveal the toll of such work. Millet reworked this subject from a small, earlier etching: the gridded pattern he used to enlarge the composition remains visible in the bare paper exposed in the sky at left.