EDINBURGH.- Two important works of French and Scottish art recently acquired by the National Galleries of Scotland have gone on display at the Scottish National Gallery.

The first is a powerful painting by the hugely influential French artist Jean-François Millet (1814 – 75). The Faggot Gatherers is a small work dating from 1850-1855 which depicts two women taking a rest from collecting branches to sell as firewood. The older woman’s hunched back shows the raw side of rural life and the physical impact of agricultural labour. As an exponent of Realism, Millet favoured truthful views of contemporary reality and the artist’s empathy with the predicament of the labourers is evident in this unsentimental work. He trained in Paris and rejected academic painting, instead developing his own style focused on countryside scenes rooted in the Normandy of his childhood. His work had a profound influence on Scottish collectors and artists in the second half of the 19th century, such as the Glasgow Boys, who recorded female fieldworkers in Berwickshire.

A painting of Rosslyn Chapel by the great Aberdeen-born artist William Dyce (1806 - 64) also now belongs permanently to the nation, having been on loan for several years. Situated around seven miles from Edinburgh, Rosslyn Chapel has been variously associated with the quest for the Holy Grail, the Knights Templar and the origins of Scottish Freemasonry. When Dyce produced this exquisite study in the 1830s, the chapel was already a popular tourist destination and a site of inspiration for artists such as J M W Turner and David Roberts. The painting is the first depiction in oil of the interior of the chapel to enter the national collection and a perfect complement to other works NGS holds by Dyce. He specialised chiefly in religious and medieval subjects, but had wide-ranging interests, including medicine, geology and art education.

Commenting on the acquisition of these two paintings, both acquired via the Acceptance in Lieu (AIL) scheme, Edward Harley OBE, Chairman of the AIL Panel, said: “I am delighted that the National Galleries of Scotland has acquired these wonderful paintings by J. F. Millet and William Dyce through the Acceptance in Lieu Scheme. Millet movingly depicts two labourers, resting after work, in a theme he returned to many times in his career. The subject of Dyce’s painting is Rosslyn Chapel near the Scottish Borders, famed for its intricate stonework and for the writers who drew on it for inspiration, including Burns and Wordsworth. I hope this example will encourage others to use the scheme to enrich our public collections.”

Christopher Baker, Director of European and Scottish Art and Portraiture at NGS, said: “These fascinating paintings enrich the narratives of French and Scottish art in the national collection. Dyce’s Rosslyn Chapel, South Aisle demonstrates his extraordinary subtlety as a painter of architecture: it is a mysterious painting that evokes the beauty of a site made world famous by Dan Brown’s ‘The Da Vinci Code’ (2003). While Millet’s The Faggot Gatherers, is the first oil painting by the artist to enter the collection; its arrival means we can demonstrate his enduring influence both on French and Scottish art of late 19th century for the first time. The National Galleries of Scotland is immensely grateful to the AIL scheme and everyone who has supported it in making these two remarkable acquisitions possible. To mark the occasion, they have both been put on display in the Scottish National Gallery for the public to enjoy.”