The droit de suite was first proposed in Europe around 1893, in response to a decrease in the importance of the salon, the end of the private patron, and to champion the cause of the "starving artist."
According to Renaud Donnedieu de Vabres, droit de suite was created in France following the sale of Millet's 1858 painting, the Angélus, in 1889 at the Secretan sale.