Leon Augustin Lhermitte (French, 1844-1925)

Details

Leon Augustin Lhermitte (French, 1844-1925)

Le Lutrin

signed 'Léon Lhermitte' lower left--charcoal on paper
23 x 17in. (58.4 x 43.2cm.)

Provenance

With Durand-Ruel, Paris
H.S. Theobald
Anon. sale, Christie's, April 12, 1910, no. 174
Anon. sale, Sotheby's, London, June 2, 1971, lot 24

Literature

The Times, June 23, 1874
M.M. Hamel, A French Artist: Léon Lhermitte (1844-1925) Ph. D. dissertation, Washington University, St Louis, 1974, no. 23
M. Le Pelley-Fonteny, Léon Augustin Lhermitte, Paris, 1991, p. 437, no. 648 (illustrated)

Exhibited

London, Dudley Gallery, Exposition du Blanc et du Noir, n.d., (as The Choir, St. Servin (no. 140 in catalogue)
Paris, Salon of 1872, no. 1030

Lot Essay

This interesting drawing was executed in January 1871 at the end of the siege of Paris. It depicts the interior of the church Saint-Séverin, and is a study for Lhermitte's oil painting of the same title that he sent to the salon of 1873 (no. 962). The drawing shows little change from the final composition in oil.

Lhermitte has dressed his father Jacues and his uncle, Victor Goudard in the ecclesiastical robes of the two priests, and according to tradition, the remaining clergy are depicted by the Curés from the villages surrounding Mont-Saint-Père.