This vertical charcoal and chalk drawing shows the head and shoulders of a light-skinned, elderly woman facing our left almost in profile. Light from our left falls across her jowled, deeply wrinkled face. She looks off to our left with clear, deep-set eyes under a raised brow. She has a long, bulbous nose, and her wide mouth is closed, her thin lips set. Her hair is covered by a long scarf tied at the base of her head, and one end falls over the shoulder closer to us. There appears to be a kerchief wrapped around her neck, and a loose-fitting jacket is buttoned all the way up. She is shown against a background filled with swipes of charcoal with dark shadows around her that get lighter in the upper right. Barely visible against the gray background, the artist signed the lower left, “Leon Lhermitte.”
Read the visual description

This vertical charcoal and chalk drawing shows the head and shoulders of a light-skinned, elderly woman facing our left almost in profile. Light from our left falls across her jowled, deeply wrinkled face. She looks off to our left with clear, deep-set eyes under a raised brow. She has a long, bulbous nose, and her wide mouth is closed, her thin lips set. Her hair is covered by a long scarf tied at the base of her head, and one end falls over the shoulder closer to us. There appears to be a kerchief wrapped around her neck, and a loose-fitting jacket is buttoned all the way up. She is shown against a background filled with swipes of charcoal with dark shadows around her that get lighter in the upper right. Barely visible against the gray background, the artist signed the lower left, “Leon Lhermitte.”

National Gallery of Art · Drawing

An Elderly Peasant Woman

Léon-Augustin Lhermitte

Date
c. 1878
Medium
charcoal with black chalk, with stumping, scraping erasing and wetting, on wove paper
Dimensions
overall: 47.5 x 39.6 cm (18 11/16 x 15 9/16 in.)
Classification
Drawing
Accession number
1996.30.1
Credit line
Gift of Mr. and Mrs. James T. Dyke
Time span
1876 to 1900
Department
CG-E

Subjects and terms

  • French
  • occupation
  • genre
  • female
  • portrait
  • Peasant
Provenance

Weiss; Charles Jerdein, London (until 1979); Joey and Toby Tanenbaum, Canada; (Peter Nahum, London); designated purchase 1996 by NGA (Gift of Mr. and Mrs. James T. Dyke).

Inscription

lower left in black chalk: Leon Lhermitte

NGA object ID 94212. Collection metadata is reproduced under CC0. This work is included because its NGA published-image record is marked open access; visitors should recheck the source record before substantial reuse.