Gustave Courbet described the composition of The Stone Breakers in the same letter:
"... On one side is an old man of seventy, bent over his work, his sledgehammer raised, his skin parched by the sun, his head shaded by a straw hat; his trousers, of coarse material, are completely patched; and in his cracked sabots you can see his bare heels sticking out of socks that were once blue. On the other side is a young man with swarthy skin, his head covered with dusk; his disgusting shirt all in tatters reveals his arms and parts of his back; a leather suspender holds up what is left of his trousers, and his mud-caked leather boots show gaping holes on every side. The old man is kneeling, the young man standing behind him energetically carrying a basket of broken rocks. Alas! In this class, this is how one begins, and that is how one ends. Scattered here and there is their gear: a basket, a stretcher, a hoe, a lunch pail, etc. All this takes place in the blazing sun, at the edge of a highway ditch: the landscape fills the canvas."
