Leon L’Hermitte was born in 1844 and was still executing works in the French rural tradition at 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 and in 1863 left his home at Mont-Saint-Pere, Aisne for the Petite Ecole in Paris where he studied with Horace Lecoq de Boisbaudran. Lecoq was known for his program of training the visual memory of his students, and 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 when he was nineteen, and 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 tbroughout his long career, including the Grand Prix at the Exhibition Universelle, 1889, the Diplome d’honneur, Dresden, 1890, and the Legion of Honor. He was a founding member of the Societe Nationale des Beaux-Arts.

Museum collections include: Municipal Gallery of Modern Art, Dublin, Ireland; Goteborg Art Gallery, Sweden; Smith College Museum of Art, Northampton, MA; Melton Park Gallery, Oklahoma City, OK; Oklahoma City Art Museum, OK; Paine Art Center, Oshkosh, WI; Ashmolean Museum, Oxford, Great Britain; Musee d’Orsay, Paris; Van Gogh Museum, Amsterdam, John G. Johnson Collection, Philadelphia, PA; Reading Public Museum and Art Gallery, Reading, PA; Memorial Art Gallery, University of Rochester, NY; Museum of Fine Art, Saintes, France; Marion Koogler McNay Art Institute, San Antonio, TX; Washington University Gallery of Art, St. Louis, MO; National Museum of Western Art, Tokyo, Japan; Toledo Museum of Art, OH: Art Gallery, Ontario; Art Institute of Chicago; Boston Museum of Fine Art; Metropolitan Museum of Art, New York; Cleveland Museum of Art; Denver Museum of Art; Montreal Museum of Fine Art.

Léon-Augustin Lhermitte (1844 - 1925) Haymakers Resting (Repos Pendant La Fenaison) Oil on canvas 21 x 15 ½ inches Signed lower left: L L. Lhermitte 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, which is set in a fine period frame. Request Info about this work