Image: Jean-François Millet, Haystacks: Autumn (c. 1874).

With the turning of the seasons, quite abruptly here in Washington, D.C., we turn to autumnal images for our Saturday art posts related to food. This week’s painting comes from France via The Met.

Haystacks: Autumn by Jean-François Millet was one of a series about the seasons that a wealthy French industrialist commissioned. Millet worked on the series over the course of seven years, starting in 1868. The museum website provides this description:

“In Autumn, with the harvest finished, the gleaners have departed and the sheep are left to graze. Beyond the haystacks lie the plain of Chailly and the rooftops of Barbizon. The loose, sketchlike finish of this work is characteristic of Millet’s late style: patches of the dark lilac-pink ground color are deliberately exposed, and the underdrawing is visible, particularly in the outlines of the haystacks and the sheep.”

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In restaurants right now it still may be possible to get the tail end of summer’s bounty. If you are in D.C., we would like to flag that the rest of the week we are a dining guide for the District. We have 300+ recommended restaurants in the guide. You can sort by cuisine, neighborhood, and current operating status (dine-in and/or take-out, etc. – though things are in flux and we may miss something, so check before you go!) in either LIST or MAP format.

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