The Angelus (painting)

The Angelus
Artist	Jean-François Millet
Year	1857–1859
Medium	oil paint, canvas
Dimensions	55.5 cm (21.9 in) × 66 cm (26 in)
Location	Musée d'Orsay
Owner	John W. Wilson, Eugène Secrétan
Commissioned by	Thomas Gold Appleton
Accession No.	RF 051804048
Identifiers	Joconde work ID: 000PE002013 RKDimages ID: 267308
[edit on Wikidata]

The Angelus (French: L'Angélus) 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. But Louvre made an X-ray of the painting on request of Dali who was impressed greatly by the contrast between the idyllic background and tragic poses of the peasants. It appeared that originally instead of basket with potatoes Millet depicted a baby coffin. Thus the couple was burying their child. b^[1]

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.