Winslow Homer painted The Return of the Gleaner during a ten-month stay in France in 1867. The balance of the figure with the three-banded composition of sky, wheat, and earth suggests an elemental relationship between woman and nature. The gleaner’s assertive, frontal pose and the strong diagonal of the two-pronged wooden hayfork on her shoulder lend dynamism to the composition. Her stern gaze and ruddy complexion suggest the increased self-assurance associated more with a young woman in post-Civil War America than with a peasant woman in the French countryside.