Noon 1860

Jacques-Adrien Lavieille’s 1860 lithograph *Noon* depicts a pair of laborers sleeping in a field of hay. The scene, rendered in delicate lines, conveys a sense of peaceful respite during the midday heat. The contrast between the foreground's intimate focus on the sleeping figures and the background's distant landscape of a hay wagon and cattle emphasizes the cyclical rhythm of rural life. *Noon* is a poignant depiction of the physical labor of the time, and a testament to Lavieille's masterful use of chiaroscuro to create a realistic and evocative image.