Landscape with Christ and the Woman of Canaan

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Landscape with Christ and the Woman of Canaan

Artist Francisque Millet (Franco-Flemish, 1642–1679)

Dateabout 1670-79

DimensionsH: 37 3/4 in. (95.9 cm); W: 51 5/8 in. (131.1 cm);
(Framed) H: 50 in. (127 cm); W: 62 3/4 in. (159.4 cm); Depth: 3 1/4 in. (8.3 cm)

MediumOil on canvas

ClassificationPaintings

Credit LinePurchased with funds from the Libbey Endowment, Gift of Edward Drummond Libbey

Object number

1960.28

On View

Toledo Museum of Art (2445 Monroe Street), Gallery, 24

Label TextThe story represented in this painting comes from the Book of Matthew in the Bible. A woman from the land of Canaan came up to Jesus while he was traveling with his apostles and asked for mercy for her daughter, who was “grievously vexed with a devil.” When the apostles tried to send the woman away because the Canaanites were not Jewish, Jesus stopped them and said to the woman, “It is not right to take the food of the children [of Israel] and throw it to the dogs.” She replied, “…even the dogs eat the scraps that fall from the table of their masters.” Impressed by her faith, Jesus healed her daughter. Francisque Millet may have chosen a biblical story, but it is the landscape that is the real subject of his painting. Like some other French painters of the 1600s, notably Nicolas Poussin and Claude Lorraine (both in the Museum’s collection), Millet created carefully constructed landscapes featuring classical architecture and a sense of balance and harmony.Published ReferencesDavies, M., "A Note on Francisque Millet," Bulletin de la Societe Poussin, no. 2, Dec. 1948, p. 24.

Toledo Museum of Art, The Toledo Museum of Art, European Paintings, Toledo 1976, pp. 111-12, pl. 193.

Illustrated London News, July 2 1966, p. 22, repr.

"New Accessions," Toledo Museum of Art Museum News, vol. 5, no. 3, Autumn 1962, p. 63, repr.

"La Chronique des arts," Supplement a la Gazette Des Beaux-Arts, no. 1129, Fevrier, 1963, p. 31, repr. no. 127.

Wittmann, Otto, "New Accessions," Museum News, The Toledo Museum of Art, Nuova serie, vol. 5, n. 3, Toledo, Autunno 1962," In Emporium, vol. CXXXVI, n. 816, no. 12, p. 287, repr.

Wintermute, Alan, ed. Claude to Corot: the Development of Landscape Painting in France, New York, 1990, p. 76, fig. 1.

Hall, Nicholas H. J., ed., Colnaghi in America, New York, 1992, p. 133.

Francisque Millet: le paysage en France de 1650 a 1700, Dijon, Editions Faton, 2003, pp. 18, 82-3, repr. pp. 18, 82.

Rosenberg, Pierre, La peinture francaise, Paris, Menges, 2001, v. 1, p. 359.

Exhibition HistoryLondon, Colnaghi, Paintings by Old Masters, 1960, no. 3, pl. III.

Paris, Galeries nationales du Grand Palais; New York, Metropolitan Museum of Art; Chicago, The Art Institute, La peinture francaise du XVIIe siecle dans les collections americaines, 1982, no. 71, pp. 290-91, 365, repr. p. 182, 290,

New York, Metropolitan Museum of Art; Chicago Art Institute. France in the Golden Age: Seventeenth-Century French Paintings in American Collections, 1982.

Oberlin, Allen Memorial Art Museum; Houston, Museum of Fine Arts, The Splendor of Ruins in French Landscape Painting, 1630-1800, 2005, no. 22, pp. 123, 125-26, repr. (col.).