The Cider Jug

Léon-Augustin Lhermitte

1874 · Charcoal on laid paper · Drawings and Prints

Lhermitte’s Realist art was greatly influenced by seventeenth-century Dutch genre scenes that exalted the humble lives and simple pleasures of peasants. In 1874 the artist traveled through Brittany, in northwestern France, recording the lives of rural workers while paying particular attention to their regional customs and dress. Cider is the preferred Breton beverage, and here we see an old peasant woman seated at a simple wood table, her hands folded reverentially as she stares at the jug of cider (perhaps already empty) in front of her.

Artist

Léon-Augustin Lhermitte

Date

1874

Medium

Charcoal on laid paper

Department

Drawings and Prints

Credit line

Anonymous Gift, 2003