Minneapolis Institute of Art

Old Woman Knitting

Albert Lebourg

Date

c. 1885

Medium

Charcoal

Department

European Art

Institution

Minneapolis Institute of Art

The prolific draftsman Albert Lebourg is largely remembered as a painter of Impressionist landscapes, but his artistic world was more varied. He ran an art school in Algeria, traveled to Egypt, invented fantasy battles, and occasionally worked in a Realist vein. As a dignified image of a modest, probably rural subject, this drawing belongs to the latter aspect of his activity. The old woman wears glasses to do her knitting. She tries to keep warm and is bundled up in a coat and hat. She is close in appearance to a woman in another Lebourg drawing identified as Madame Ducroix Mallet and may be one in the same. Madame Ducroix Mallet ran a hotel in Pont du Château, a town in the Auvergne region of central France. The image of Madame Ducroix Mallet is said to date from 1885. Though undated, the present drawing was also probably made in 1885, when Lebourg was in Pont du Château, painting snow scenes of the area. Europe

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