Rosa Bonheur

With astonishing realism, Rosa Bonheur's large agricultural painting Labourage Nivernais depicts two teams of oxen being led by a farmhand resolutely brandishing a goad.

Under the light of a vast, cloudless sky, man and beast are united in a singular effort, eternal and powerful.

The furrows formed in the vast clods of upturned soil are the same ones that will produce "the bread that will feed the whole world," explains the artist. Working the fields, on a path without beginning or end, takes on a heroic and timeless dimension.

This reappraisal of the peasant world went hand in hand with the adoption of universal suffrage. Vast numbers of peasants gained the vote and became a major political force.

From this point on, town and village halls would ensure that they always displayed glorious harvest scenes to show their interest in this sector of the population.

The fact that, in this same period, the famous feminine figure of Oscar Roty's Sower was selected to adorn stamps and coins also stems from the same political backdrop.