Black Sheep

The Black Sheep is an interior scene in the style of Millet’s “Colonial” paintings showing a family in their dining room. The center of the canvas is dominated by a man in Puritan dress standing holding a bible, from which he appears to be reading aloud. A dark shadow surrounds the man and extends to the right, into the center of the painting, onto the fireplace mantle, and up the wall toward the top of the painting passing over the items above the mantle, ending just prior to the face of the mother figure.

On the right of the canvas are four figures representing the majority of the family unit, the mother stands with hands clasped in front of the hearth, and a young boy and teenage girls sit at the table. All of these figures are dressed modestly, in solid colors, and all of their gazes are fixed on the final figure in the painting.

On the left, a young woman sits with her hands in her lap wearing a floral patterned, square necked dress and bright pink skirt, and although her blond hair is covered by a cap, she is not wearing a fichu, leaving her shoulders and neckline exposed. The young woman appears to be blushing as she listens to her father’s sermon. This composition sets the young girl in pink apart as the black sheep of her family, though Millet has painted her very sympathetically, with light from the window and doorway behind her to illuminate her, and several potted flowers in bloom on the sill to her left to mirror the pink of her dress.

This painting was clearly done in the Broadway, England, studio known as The Grange; as were several of the other colonial genre paintings, such as Between Two Fires. The fireplace itself and the beamed ceiling are well recognized in other Millet paintings.  The Grange can be visited today in Broadway, where it is functioning as a hotel.  Other commonly used items by Millet are also visible, such as the two candle stick holders on the mantle, the map on the wall, which takes on different geography depending upon the Millet painting in which it is used, however the roller bars are commonly painted the same in each Millet painting.  Also through the door hangs a chandelier also seen in other works. On the floor below the map are two wide mouth basins and even the bench on which the young lady sits is commonly used by Millet in his colonial works.

Sitting upon the window sill behind the woman is what may be interpreted as a pink Geranium, painted in the colors of the woman’s face and dress.  It is interesting to note here that the meaning of the Geranium has commonly been held to represent many desirable attributes of love, peace, healing, elegance and spirituality, however in Victorian times the flower was associated negatively to symbolize envy, deceit and folly. Most of these negative connotations were attributed to the geranium mainly throughout the Victorian era because the geranium flowers have a simple and light appearance, they also became a symbol of foolishness and stupidity.

Geranium Flower: Meaning, Symbolism, and Colors

Millet often left the interpretation of his paintings more open or fluid. Particularly in his colonial paintings, he was willing to let the viewer carry their own life experiences and interpretations into the works.