Which French realist painter created 'The Sower' in 1850?

Which French realist painter created “The Sower” in 1850? Jean-François Millet created it.

Millet’s oil painting shows a peasant sowing seed across a dark field, with crows and distant farm work reinforcing the rural setting. The work is in the collection of Boston’s Museum of Fine Arts and measures about 101.6 by 82.6 centimeters.

Millet painted the picture after moving to Barbizon in 1849. His focus on agricultural labor reflected both his rural background and the Realist movement’s interest in ordinary contemporary life. Monumental images of workers were controversial because grand scale had traditionally been reserved for religious, mythological, or historical subjects.

A common mix-up is assuming every version of “The Sower” is the same painting. Millet returned to the subject several times, including a similar version now in the Yamanashi Prefectural Art Museum. Vincent van Gogh later copied and reinterpreted Millet’s rural scenes, making the motif influential beyond French Realism.