Parisian Rag Pickers
Jean-François Raffaëlli
European Art
On View:
Jean-François Raffaëlli frequently painted ragpickers, so called because they made their meager living on the margins of industrialized capitalism, collecting scraps and castoffs for resale. Here, a man and woman traverse the bleak landscape between Paris and its expanding suburbs. Such members of the urban lower classes were displaced when Paris was transformed at midcentury into a modern city of broad boulevards and leisure spaces. Many ragpickers struggled to maintain their livelihoods in the later nineteenth century after official sanitation programs limited where and when they could ply their trade.
Raffaëlli wrote that he associated his ragpickers with “an idea of liberty, of savage independence,” claiming “these men have no masters.” Ragpickers were considered poetic figures, but also ones whose lives on the periphery amid refuse led them to be classified as “foreign” outsiders. Racialized criticism of the time noted what were perceived as the darker, “dirty” skin tones of Raffaëlli’s ragpickers and characterized them as immigrants “who haven’t yet gotten their letters of naturalization.”
Raffaëlli wrote that he associated his ragpickers with “an idea of liberty, of savage independence,” claiming “these men have no masters.” Ragpickers were considered poetic figures, but also ones whose lives on the periphery amid refuse led them to be classified as “foreign” outsiders. Racialized criticism of the time noted what were perceived as the darker, “dirty” skin tones of Raffaëlli’s ragpickers and characterized them as immigrants “who haven’t yet gotten their letters of naturalization.”
MEDIUM
Oil and oil crayon on board set into cradled panel
DATES
ca. 1890
DIMENSIONS
Cradled Panel: 13 3/8 × 11 3/16 × 11/16 in. (34 × 28.4 cm)
frame (Framed in microclimate): 22 1/8 × 20 1/8 × 4 1/4 in. (56.2 × 51.1 × 10.8 cm) (show scale)
SIGNATURE
Lower left: "J.F. RAFFAËLLI"
COLLECTIONS
European Art
ACCESSION NUMBER
10.88
CREDIT LINE
Gift of Henry C. Lawrence
EXHIBITIONS
MUSEUM LOCATION
This item is not on view
CAPTION
Jean-François Raffaëlli (French, 1850–1924). Parisian Rag Pickers, ca. 1890. Oil and oil crayon on board set into cradled panel, Cradled Panel: 13 3/8 × 11 3/16 × 11/16 in. (34 × 28.4 cm). Brooklyn Museum, Gift of Henry C. Lawrence, 10.88 (Photo: Brooklyn Museum, 10.88_SL1.jpg)
IMAGE
overall, 10.88_SL1.jpg. Brooklyn Museum photograph
"CUR" at the beginning of an image file name means that the image was created by a curatorial staff member. These study images may be digital point-and-shoot photographs, when we don\'t yet have high-quality studio photography, or they may be scans of older negatives, slides, or photographic prints, providing historical documentation of the object.
RIGHTS STATEMENT
No known copyright restrictions
This work may be in the public domain in the United States. Works created by United States and non-United States nationals published prior to 1923 are in the public domain, subject to the terms of any applicable treaty or agreement.
You may download and use Brooklyn Museum images of this work. Please include caption information from this page and credit the Brooklyn Museum. If you need a high resolution file, please fill out our online application form (charges apply).
The Museum does not warrant that the use of this work will not infringe on the rights of third parties, such as artists or artists' heirs holding the rights to the work. It is your responsibility to determine and satisfy copyright or other use restrictions before copying, transmitting, or making other use of protected items beyond that allowed by "fair use," as such term is understood under the United States Copyright Act.
The Brooklyn Museum makes no representations or warranties with respect to the application or terms of any international agreement governing copyright protection in the United States for works created by foreign nationals.
For further information about copyright, we recommend resources at the United States Library of Congress, Cornell University, Copyright and Cultural Institutions: Guidelines for U.S. Libraries, Archives, and Museums, and Copyright Watch.
For more information about the Museum's rights project, including how rights types are assigned, please see our blog posts on copyright.
If you have any information regarding this work and rights to it, please contact copyright@brooklynmuseum.org.
RECORD COMPLETENESS
Not every record you will find here is complete. More information is available for some works than for others, and some entries have been updated more recently. Records are frequently reviewed and revised, and we welcome any additional information you might have.
