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Paul Henry , Irish, 1876-1958

Title

The Potato Diggers

Date1912

MediumOil on canvas

Dimensions

51 x 46 cm

Signedlower right: PAUL HENRY 1912

Credit LinePurchased, 1968

Object numberNGI.1870

Exhibition HistoryPaul Henry Retrospective, Trinity College Dublin, 1973

The Irish Impressionists, Irish Artists in France and Belgium, 1850-1914, National Gallery of Ireland, Dublin, 9 October - 18 November 1984; Ulster Museum, Belfast, 1 February - 10 March 1985

Label TextOne of Henry’s few dated works, this picture owes an obvious debt to Jean-François Millet, who Henry is known to have admired in his youth. Henry would have seen in Paris Millet’s celebrated painting The Gleaners, from which the bending figure in his own painting is derived. Though small, Henry’s painting also boasts a monumentality characteristic of Millet’s work. Henry had great regard for the islanders of Achill, who he first encountered in 1910, noting their ‘incessant toil with the spade; ploughs useless on most of those stony fields’.