Minneapolis Institute of Art

The Weaver (Le tisserand)

Léon-Augustin Lhermitte

Date

1887

Medium

Charcoal highlighted with white chalk

Department

European Art

Institution

Minneapolis Institute of Art

Léon-Augustin Lhermitte made this drawing at a time when cottage industries such as weaving faced intense competition from mechanized factories. It was a serious social concern across northern Europe, one Lhermitte helped to humanize with his art. He ennobled these workers by portraying the space as orderly and the couple as absorbed in the day’s work, seeming to confer about the fiber that will be spun and woven into cloth. The product of their labors slowly accumulates on the big roller near the man’s feet. The pair are presented less as individuals than as generalized types, emblematic of all traditional artisans threatened by industrialization. France

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