Léon Augustin Lhermitte

Léon Augustin Lhermitte (1844–1925) was born in Mont-Saint-Père in Picardy, the son of a schoolteacher who encouraged his gift for drawing. In 1863 he entered the Petite École in Paris under Horace Lecoq de Boisbaudran, and later the École des Beaux-Arts. From 1869 he visited England regularly, befriending Henri Fantin-Latour and James McNeill Whistler and selling his work in London through Paul Durand-Ruel and Edwin Edwards. A naturalist painter and etcher, he took the rural life of his native region as his main subject and became known as the painter of harvesters; The Harvesters' Pay of 1882 established his reputation. His pastels were much admired, and Vincent van Gogh wrote of him with great enthusiasm, ranking him alongside Millet. He was elected to the Académie des Beaux-Arts in 1905, made a commander of the Legion of Honour in 1910, and died in Paris in 1925. Here: Friend of the Humble (Supper at Emmaus).