The Harvest

ca. 1886

Léon-Augustin Lhermitte French, 1844-1925

Not On View

Image Only Image + Details All Images High Resolution TIFF Metadata

About the Artwork

Please note: This section is empty
Markings

Please note: This section is empty

This section contains information about signatures, inscriptions and/or markings an object may have.
Provenance

Please note: This section is empty

Provenance is a record of an object's ownership. We are continually researching and updating this information to show a more accurate record and to ensure that this object was ethically and legally obtained.

For more information on provenance and its important function in the museum, please visit:
Provenance page
Exhibition History

Please note: This section is empty

The exhibition history of a number of objects in our collection only begins after their acquisition by the museum, and may reflect an incomplete record.

We welcome your feedback for correction and/or improvement.
Suggest Feedback
Published References

Please note: This section is empty

We regularly update our object record as new research and findings emerge, and we welcome your feedback for correction and/or improvement.
Suggest Feedback
Catalogue Raisonné

Please note: This section is empty

A catalogue raisonné is an annotated listing of artworks created by an artist across different media.
Credit Line for Reproduction

Please note: This section is empty

The credit line includes information about the object, such as the artist, title, date, and medium. Also listed is its ownership, the manner in which it was acquired, and its accession number. This information must be cited alongside the object whenever it is shown or reproduced.
Audio Transcript

Please note: This section is empty

About the Artwork

Leon-Augustin Lhermitte painted this harvest scene near Ru Chailly in Fossoy in northern France, not far from where he was born to a peasant family. The work dates to around 1886, following his exhibition at the Paris Salons of a series of monumental paintings portraying peasants as heroic individuals engaged in noble labor. Here, Lhermitte’s idealized workers are athletic and unperturbed by the exigencies of their toil. The crisp, clean clothes of the two women in the foreground are rendered in an exacting manner, rivaled only by the meticulous depiction of the heaps of hay they collect.

Despite his personal background, Lhermitte did not seek to provide a faithful record of the challenges of peasant life. The introduction of reapers and other mechanized devices in this period significantly transformed rural France, forcing farm laborers to migrate in mass from the countryside to the cities in search of work. Yet Lhermitte’s peasants exist in a world untouched by these modernizing forces. His nostalgic images of the premodern rural era appealed to the bourgeois collectors during a time marked by economic, societal, and political unrest.

Title The Harvest

Artwork Date ca. 1886

Artist Léon-Augustin Lhermitte

Life Dates 1844-1925

Nationality Please note: Definitions for nationality may vary significantly, depending on chronology and world events. Some definitions include: Belonging to a people having a common origin based on a geography and/or descent and/or tradition and/or culture and/or religion and/or language, or sharing membership in a legally defined nation. French

Culture Please note: Cultures may be defined by the language, customs, religious beliefs, social norms, and material traits of a group. ----------

Medium Oil on canvas

Dimensions Unframed: 31 × 39 1/2 inches (78.7 × 100.3 cm) Framed: 39 1/4 × 48 × 3 1/8 inches (99.7 × 121.9 × 7.9 cm)

Classification Paintings

Department European Modern Art to 1970

Credit Bequest of Alfred J. Fisher, 1967

Accession Number This unique number is assigned to an individual artwork as part of the cataloguing process at the time of entry into the permanent collection. Most frequently, accession numbers begin with the year in which the artwork entered the museum’s holdings. For example, 2008.3 refers to the year of acquisition and notes that it was the 3rd of that year. The DIA has a few additional systems—no longer assigned—that identify specific donors or museum patronage groups. 1992.359

Markings

Please note: This section is empty

Provenance

Mr. and Mrs. Alfred J. Fisher (Detroit, Michigan, USA);
1993-present, bequest to the Detroit Institute of Arts (Detroit, Michigan, USA)

For more information on provenance, please visit:

Provenance page

Exhibition History

Please note: This section is empty

The exhibition history of a number of objects in our collection only begins after their acquisition by the museum, and may reflect an incomplete record.

We welcome your feedback for correction and/or improvement.

Suggest Feedback