19th Century European Art

/

Lot 19
  • 19

Léon-Augustin Lhermitte

bidding is closed

Description

  • Léon-Augustin Lhermitte
  • La Marne
  • signed and dated L. Lhermitte/1903 (lower left)
  • oil on canvas
  • 56 by 79 1/4 in.
  • 142.2 by 202.6cm

Provenance

Boussod, Valadon & Cie.
Knoedler Gallery (acquired from the above)
Felix Isman
Knoedler & Cie.
Mary J. Musill
The Wadsworth Atheneum, Hartford, Connecticut (gift from the above, March 2, 1910)
Sale, Sotheby's, New York, November 2, 2001, lot 103
Acquired at the above sale

Exhibited

Paris, Salon, 1903, no. 851
G. Fox Company, Hartford, Connecticut, 1956 (lent by the Wadsworth Atheneum for a special exhibition)
The Wadsworth Atheneum, Hartford, Connecticut, A Second Look: Late 19th Century Taste in Paintings, 1958, no. 6

Literature

Monique Le Pelley Fonteny, Léon-Augustin Lhermitte: Catalogue Raisonné, Paris, 1991, no. 83, illustrated p. 119, also discussed pp. 506, 513

Catalogue Note

Lhermitte's upbringing in the rural village of Mont Saint-Père in Picardie provided the artist with the subjects and landscapes that would become the staples of his oeuvre. His early training took place at the atelier of Lecoq de Boisbaudran, whose students included Legros and Fantin-Latour.

In La Marne, Lhermitte rendered the atmospheric effects of a hazy afternoon using his characteristic feather-light brushstroke.  A fisherman patiently waits for the day's catch as his family observes him.  Lhermitte practiced an unadorned naturalism, neither idealizing the landscape, nor incorporating a narrative into the composition.  After 1900, Lhermitte often painted images of fishermen into his views of the riverbanks along the Marne.