Jean Francois Millet & Robert Dudley.

I stopped in Marion, Iowa (named after the Swamp Fox) on my way into Cedar Rapids Friday afternoon and had a chance to peruse a few antique shops. Picked up three nice pieces. I have no idea how old they are but they're great and they're mine.

Above: Jean-François Millet, The Gleaners, 1857, oil on canvas

Millet was a French painter and one of the founders of the Barbizon school in rural France. He is noted for his scenes of peasant farmers and is categorized as part of the naturalism and realism movements. I have a theme of pastoral-esque scenes on the first floor. Country, revelry, various folks, family - that sort of thing. It fits.

The other art pieces are from Robert Dudley, one of the premier etchers of his day. There's scant information available on Dudley but I was able to find out that "chromolithographs" represent the zenith of the lithographers art, which peaked around 1870. These are two of the 36 colored plates from "The Shakespeare Library", published by William Mackenzie in about 1870.

The one above is labeled, "Come away death", Act VI, Scene I from "Twelfth Night". However, there is no 6th Act in "Twelfth Night". And "come away death" is in a different scene in that play. The back of the print says, "Where there's for thee and there". That quote is from Act IV, Scene I of "Twelfth Night" and more accurately reflects the drawing/etching above.

This second one is correctly labeled, "Master, be one of them", from Act IV, Scene 1 of "Two Gentlemen of Verona". An art coup! in Marion, Iowa (I should be on American Pickers).