Volume 1, Issue 4, June 2009
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Gallery Information | Artist List | Contact Us
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Dear Friends,
We are pleased to present this outstanding work by Leon
L'hermitte for your consideration.
Haymakers Resting
is both poetic and profound, synthesizing the enduring connection of the artist to the people of rural France and the
land they tended. While rooted firmly in the realist aesthetic of Jean Francois Millet and Jules Breton, he was deeply admired by Vincent Van Gogh and proposed by Edgar Degas for inclusion in
the fourth Impressionist Exhibition. He is acknowledged today as a painter's
painter and a significant bridge between the established academic tradition and
the Impressionists.
The provenance of this painting is sterling, having
descended through the Watkins Family of the Midwest for
three generations. Until recently, the work has been on long term loan and exhibition
with the Minneapolis Institute of the Arts. It is offered for sale here for the
first time: price upon request.
We wish all of you a pleasant and quiet rest from your
labors this summer.
Sincerely,
Joyce and Kevin Anderson
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LÉON AUGUSTIN L'HERMITTE
French, 1844-1925
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Click Image
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Haymakers Resting (Repos Pendant La Fenaison)
Oil on canvas
21 x 15 ½ inches (28 x 25 inches framed)
Signed lower left: L. Lhermitte
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Provenance
Boussod Valadon and Co. Paris in association with
M. Knoedler and Co.
New York (See pictured right)
Paul Watkins Sr., New
York, April 30th, 1917
By descent to Ruth Watkins, Greendale, MN
Paul Watkins Jr. Minneapolis,
MN
Minneapolis Institute of the Arts *
* Repos Pendant La Fenaison was recently on extended loan at the Minneapolis Institute of Fine Arts
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| Literature |
M. Le Pelley Fonteny, Leon
Augustin Lhermitte: Catalogue Raisonne, Paris, 1991, p. 149 no. 230-1, illustrated.
 Click Image to Enlarge
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In December of 1916, Boussod Valadon and Co. Paris in association with M. Knoedler and Co.
New York received the present work from the artist. In 1922, Paul Watkins journeyed to France and
visited L'Hermitte's studio, where he dedicated three photographs of this
painting. One of these photographs, signed and dated by L'Hermitte, accompanies
this work.
 
Click Images to Enlarge
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Biography
Leon L'Hermitte was born in 1844 and was still executing
works in the French rural tradition until his death in 1925, making him the last
in an illustrious group of artists dedicated to this genre. He showed artistic talent at a young age. In 1863 left his home at Mont-Saint-Pere, Aisne for the Petite Ecole, where he
studied with Horace Lecoq de Boisbaudran in Paris.
Lecoq was known for his program of training the visual memory of his
students; his theories had a profound effect on L'Hermitte. It was in his studio that L'Hermitte formed a
life-long friendship with Cazin and also became acquainted with Legros,
Fantin-Latour and Rodin. L'Hermitte sent
his initial entry to the Salon in 1864 at the age of 19. He continued to
exhibit charcoal drawings and paintings regularly and pastels after 1885,
winning his first medal in 1874 with La
Moisson (Musee de Carcassonne).
Other prizes and honors came to L'Hermitte throughout his long career,
including the Grand Prix at the Exhibition Universelle in 1889, the Diplome
d'honneur at Dresden
in 1890, and the Legion d'honneur. He
was a founding member of the Societe Nationale des Beaux-Arts.
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Museums
Municipal Gallery of Modern Art, Dublin; Goteborg Art
Gallery, Sweden; Smith College Museum of Art, Northampton; Melton Park Gallery,
Oklahoma City; Oklahoma City Art Museum, OK; Paine Art Center, Oshkosh;
Ashmolean Museum,Oxford; Musee
d'Orsay, Paris; van Gogh Museum, Amsterdam; John G. Johnson Collection,
Philadelphia; Reading Public Museum and Art Gallery, PA; Memorial Art Gallery,
University of Rochester; Museum of Fine Art, Saintes; Marion Koogler McNay Art
Institute, San Antonio; Washington University Gallery of Art, St. Louis;
National Museum of Western Art, Tokyo; Toledo Museum of Art, OH; Art Gallery,
Ontario; Art Institute of Chicago, IL; Museum of Fine Art, Boston; Metropolitan
Museum of Art, New York; Cleveland Museum of Art, OH; Denver Museum of Art, CO;
Montreal Museum of Fine Art, Canada; Minneapolis Institute of Fine Arts, MN
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Framing & Condition
Click Images to Enlarge
The painting is in excellent condition and is presented
in a fine period frame (28 x 25 inches)
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