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Lot Essay
In 1885 Vincent van Gogh wrote a letter to his brother Theo which praised Lhermitte as the ‘master of the figure. He’s able to do what he likes with it — conceiving the whole neither from the color nor from the local tone, but rather proceeding from the light — as Rembrandt did — there’s something astonishingly masterly in everything he does — in modelling, above all things, he utterly satisfies the demands of honesty' (letter 531, 2 September 1885). In another letter the following month, writing a defense of the greatness of modern art, van Gogh compared Millet and Lhermitte to Michelangelo and Rembrandt, ranking them all as geniuses. 'In the work of Millet, of Lhermitte,’ van Gogh wrote, ‘all reality is also symbolic at the same time. They’re something other than what people call realists’ (letter 533, 4 October 1885).
Lhermitte's early training took place in the atelier of Horace Lecoq de Boisbaudran, whose students included Legros and Fantin-Latour. He studied the compositions of the Barbizon painters Corot, Millet, Breton and Daubigny, and developed a faculty for rendering physical form by varying the gradations of light and dark, maximizing the effect of shadow in the modeling of his subjects. At his death in 1925, Lhermitte was the last of this illustrious group of the Barbizon painters executing works in the French rural tradition.
Lhermitte's peasants are actual, identifiable people from his village, unlike those of Millet who are in a constant struggle with nature and are personifications rather than individuals. Lhermitte portrayed the country folk at work and proud of their toil, creating a romantic nostalgia. In Lhermitte's work, the landscapes are filled with light, color and atmosphere and these figures are idealized and dignified – the work of the gleaners in the foreground given as much weight and importance as the work of those stacking hay in the background. Ignoring the Industrial Revolution and centering on the image of a society prior to its emergence, Lhermitte's peasants were a connection to a lost world for his collectors and admirers, who had long since abandoned rural life for a more modern one in the cities.
This work was formerly in the collection of Bertha and Potter Palmer, the great Chicago collectors. Potter Palmer was responsible for much of the development of State Street in Chicago and was an early investor in the consortium that would become Marshall Fields department store. He and his wife were avid art collectors, and they filled their mansion on Lake Shore Drive with purchases made abroad based on the advice of Sarah Hallowell, an advisor from Philadelphia who introduced the couple to painters in Paris and to the latest artistic trends of the French capital. The Palmers were on the cutting edge of art collecting at the time in Chicago, and they moved away from the current trends and began collecting the artists of the new Impressionist movement. At one time they owned twenty-nine Monets and eleven Renoirs, which were donated to form the basis of the collection of the Art Institute of Chicago.
Lhermitte's early training took place in the atelier of Horace Lecoq de Boisbaudran, whose students included Legros and Fantin-Latour. He studied the compositions of the Barbizon painters Corot, Millet, Breton and Daubigny, and developed a faculty for rendering physical form by varying the gradations of light and dark, maximizing the effect of shadow in the modeling of his subjects. At his death in 1925, Lhermitte was the last of this illustrious group of the Barbizon painters executing works in the French rural tradition.
Lhermitte's peasants are actual, identifiable people from his village, unlike those of Millet who are in a constant struggle with nature and are personifications rather than individuals. Lhermitte portrayed the country folk at work and proud of their toil, creating a romantic nostalgia. In Lhermitte's work, the landscapes are filled with light, color and atmosphere and these figures are idealized and dignified – the work of the gleaners in the foreground given as much weight and importance as the work of those stacking hay in the background. Ignoring the Industrial Revolution and centering on the image of a society prior to its emergence, Lhermitte's peasants were a connection to a lost world for his collectors and admirers, who had long since abandoned rural life for a more modern one in the cities.
This work was formerly in the collection of Bertha and Potter Palmer, the great Chicago collectors. Potter Palmer was responsible for much of the development of State Street in Chicago and was an early investor in the consortium that would become Marshall Fields department store. He and his wife were avid art collectors, and they filled their mansion on Lake Shore Drive with purchases made abroad based on the advice of Sarah Hallowell, an advisor from Philadelphia who introduced the couple to painters in Paris and to the latest artistic trends of the French capital. The Palmers were on the cutting edge of art collecting at the time in Chicago, and they moved away from the current trends and began collecting the artists of the new Impressionist movement. At one time they owned twenty-nine Monets and eleven Renoirs, which were donated to form the basis of the collection of the Art Institute of Chicago.