Such paintings as his Burial at Ornans (1849) and the Stone Breakers (1849), which he had exhibited in the Salon of 1850 51, had already shocked the public and critics by the frank and unadorned factuality with which they depicted humble peasants and labourers.
Henry Wallis's painting The Stone-Breaker (1857), in Birmingham Museum, is not exactly a reassuring image of Victorian society.
It was a rare victory for the downtrodden.It has not made the stone-breakers rich, just slightly less wretchedly poor.
Courbet's "Stone-Breakers" (1849; destroyed during World War II) and Millet's harrowing "Quarriers" (c. 1847; Toledo Museum of Art, Ohio) powerfully express their creators' concern for the poor.
Painted in 1849, The Stone-Breakers is a realistic rendering of two figures doing physical labour in a barren rural setting.
The 45-minute tour is capped by a visit to the chilling stone-breakers yard, where some of the rebels were shot.
On the domain of the raja, who seemed reluctant to deal directly with the stone-breakers, they more or less seized the land with quiet consent from the local authorities.
In 1849 he visited his family at Ornans to recover from his hectic lifestyle in Paris and, inspired again by his native countryside, produced two of his greatest paintings: The Stone-Breakers and Burial at Ornans.
India's burgeoning population is crowding out forest, he suggests, arguing that "people of quality should come up, not just inferior grade".Mr Saran, the stone-breakers' advocate, tries to soften him up.
They were paid less than half the legal minimum wage (about 60 rupees in Uttar Pradesh today); sickness or marriage brought debt; some families allegedly repaid with the bodies of their wives and daughters.In the late 1990s an NGO called Sankalp began helping the stone-breakers to organise small "self-help groups".
