Harvest 1872

Léon Augustin Lhermitte made this etching titled 'Harvest', showing the French rural life. Here, Lhermitte is very much a Realist, attempting to depict labor and the life of the peasant without embellishment, and with a great deal of attention to detail. The artist’s focus on the lower classes reflects the rising social awareness that followed the French Revolution. But, the print also reveals the institutional structures that underpinned artistic production. Lhermitte trained at the Petite École, a state-sponsored art school that promoted the idea of art as a public service. The artist’s careful technique and detailed rendering would have appealed to the academic juries that controlled access to official exhibitions and patronage. Lhermitte, therefore, produced images like this one to align with the values of the art world. Understanding an artwork like ‘Harvest’ requires us to explore the social and institutional contexts that shaped its creation. By consulting exhibition records, school archives, and other historical documents, we can better understand the complex interplay of art, power, and society.