The Interior of a Barn

Characteristic of Lhermitte’s draughtsmanship, the present sheet belongs to a group of finished charcoal studies of rustic interiors produced throughout the artist’s career. Closely comparable works include Sheep Barn in the Philadelphia Museum of Art (inv. 1021; M. Le Pelley Fonteny, Leon Augustin Lhermitte (1844-1925): Catalogue raisonné, Paris, 1991, p. 391, ill., no. 368) and The Interior of a Forge in the Musée Jean de La Fontaine, Château-Thierry (M. Le Pelley Fonteny, op. cit., p. 394, ill., no. 394). Lhermitte’s sympathetic depictions of rural life were widely admired by his contemporaries: Vincent van Gogh, writing in 1885, praised the artist’s powerful and truthful observation of peasant subjects (Vincent Van Gogh: The Letters, online, accessed 2026, letter no. 531).