Page:François-Millet.djvu/89

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JEAN FRANÇOIS MILLET

comprising at first three low rooms: the studio, the kitchen, and a bedroom for his wife and his three first children. Then, as six more children came, two other rooms were added, and a studio was built on the other side of the garden. Clematis, ivy and jasmine covered the walls. Flowers, vegetables and fruits grew in disorder in the garden. Beyond the garden came a farmyard, then an orchard, then a thick copse. Ten minutes from the house began the forest. The studio was excessively humble, built like a barn, but with a large window upon the street. It was a high room with an inlaid floor, and contained an iron stove, a little iron bed in one corner, some casts of the Parthenon friezes and the bas-reliefs on Trajan's column, and a collection of rags of every shape and colour, which Millet called "his museum." There was nothing for show; everything was in great disorder. The easel became a matter of legend among Millet's friends. "It was too small to hold any of his pictures; its deal framework was so loose in the joints and so worm-eaten that one was always dreading to see the canvas

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