La cigale

Here Lefebvre takes as his subject an allegorical depiction of the fable of La Cigale et la Fourmi by Jean de La Fontaine, originally derived from Aesop. In La Fontaine’s tale, the grasshopper (sometimes also translated as a cicada) spends the summer singing and playing while making fun of the industrious ant, who gathers up his stores and prepares his house for the winter. When the first winds of winter arrive, the grasshopper is caught unprepared and homeless, while the ant is safe from the cold winds. Lefebvre’s Cigale stands nude before a wall, with autumn leaves blowing at her feet and the wind whipping at her hair and thin scarf. A larger version of the composition, exhibited at the Salon of 1872 is now in the collection of the National Gallery of Victoria, Melbourne. The present work, painted in 1877, is a later variant and was for many years in the collection of Walter P. Chrysler, Jr.