A painted sketch of Woman Feeding Her Children, made in 1848, is held at the Ahmed Zabana National Museum, in Oran, Algeria.

A mother, squatting on a stool in front of her farmhouse door, gives soup to her three children seated on the threshold, while the father, in the background, digs his garden.

In a letter addressed to the art critic Théophile Thoré-Burger, who saw the canvas exhibited in the Martinet Gallery, Millet explained: "I would like [in this painting] to imagine a brood of birds being fed by their mother.

The comparison between the preparatory drawings, made long before, and the final painting, reveals a maturation of the painter's intentions in the composition of the canvas.

Everything then contributes to express family harmony, from the eyes and hands of the children brought together by the tenderness of the figures of their parents, their massive and protective mother, and their discreet and hardworking father, both united in their function, nurturing.