Petite bergère tricotant 

Jean-François Millet captured this young shepherdess with pastel on paper. She stands as a guardian amidst her flock, her hands engaged in the timeless craft of knitting. The act of knitting itself—the rhythmic looping of yarn into fabric—carries echoes from antiquity. Think of Penelope in Homer’s Odyssey, who wove and unraveled a shroud to ward off suitors, or the Fates, who spun, measured, and cut the thread of life. These archetypal women, goddesses or mortals, all preside over destiny and time. Knitting, then, becomes a metaphor for the cycles of creation and destruction, a continuous thread linking past and present. Millet’s shepherdess evokes a sense of quiet melancholy. She’s both timeless and rooted in the present. This simple, repetitive act might unconsciously resonate with ancient concepts of fate and time. The cyclical act of knitting as a symbol that surfaces and evolves through history, constantly re-emerging.