The Angelus

I recently found this dish at Goodwood antiques fair but it is not going on my website as I like it too much and I also have a print by the same artist though it has lost all its colour over the years.

The original paintings are 'The Angelus' and 'Shepherdess with her Flock' by Jean-Francois Millet (1814 - 1875).

I first became aware of Millet's work when I had a winnowing basket for sale and didn't know what it was until I found this painting by the artist.

In this painting a man and a woman are reciting the Angelus, a prayer which commemorates the annunciation made to Mary by the angel Gabriel. They have stopped digging potatoes and all the tools used for this task – the potato fork, the basket, the sacks and the wheelbarrow – are strewn around them. In 1865, Millet said: "The idea for The Angelus came to me because I remembered that my grandmother, hearing the church bell ringing while we were working in the fields, always made us stop work to say the Angelus prayer for the poor departed".

Both Salvador Dali and Vincent Van Gogh have painted their own interpretations of this painting.