The Labourers in the Vineyard (The Parables of Our Lord and Saviour Jesus Christ)

The Labourers in the Vineyard (The Parables of Our Lord and Saviour Jesus Christ)

Sir John Everett Millais

An item at Metropolitan Museum of Art

It took Millais seven years to design twenty images inspired by New Testament Parables for the Dalziel Brothers, and the resulting prints are considered pinnacles of wood engraved illustration. The artist wrote to his publishers, "I can do ordinary drawings as quickly as most men, but these designs can scarcely be regarded in the same light—each Parable I illustrate perhaps a dozen times before I fix [the image]." After completing a design, Millais transferred it to a woodblock coated with "Chinese" white for skilled engravers to carve. Finally, he reviewed proofs, and final adjustments were made before the final printing. The Parable of the Laborers in the Vineyard appears in Matthew 20: 1-16, and tells how a vineyard owner hires workers over the course of a day, then pays all the same wage. Millais shows some angrily questioning this policy. Pre-Raphaelite ideals shaped the combination of detailed naturalism and down-to-earth imagery to produce a work distinctly different from most religious art of the period.


Drawings and Prints

An exhibit at Metropolitan Museum of Art

The Labourers in the Vineyard (The Parables of Our Lord and Saviour Jesus Christ)The Labourers in the Vineyard (The Parables of Our Lord and Saviour Jesus Christ)The Labourers in the Vineyard (The Parables of Our Lord and Saviour Jesus Christ)The Labourers in the Vineyard (The Parables of Our Lord and Saviour Jesus Christ)The Labourers in the Vineyard (The Parables of Our Lord and Saviour Jesus Christ)

The Department’s vast collection of works on paper comprises approximately 21,000 drawings, 1.2 million prints, and 12,000 illustrated books created in Europe and the Americas from about 1400 to the present day. Since its foundation in 1916, the Department has been committed to collecting a wide range of works on paper, which includes both pieces that are incredibly rare and lauded for their aesthetic appeal, as well as material that is more popular, functional, and ephemeral. The broad scope of the department’s collecting encourages questions of connoisseurship as well as those pertaining to function and context, and demonstrates the vital role that prints, drawings, and illustrated books have played throughout history.