Louis Le Nain

French, c. 1600/1603 - 1648

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French painter (1593-1648)

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An elderly man, woman, and boy sit around a makeshift table in an interior as a girl stands by a fire in the background in this nearly square painting. The man, woman, and boy sit at a low, wide barrel partially covered with a white cloth. Their pale skin and clothing, in frosty tones of sand brown and white, are washed out by the bright, cold light coming from our left. Their clothing has rips and holes. To our left, the man sits facing our right in profile. He has tousled gray hair and a short beard and moustache. Wrinkles line his forehead over bushy brows, and a deep crease connects his nose and the corner of the mouth we can see. He wears a brown cloak and vest, and dark blue pants are tucked into his boots. He holds a wide-brimmed hat in his lap, and a walking sick with a spike on the end rests between his knees. An empty wooden bowl is tucked in near one elbow. The woman sits in the center facing us with one hand holding the other, close to her body on her lap. A pointed staff wrapped with white wool, a spindle, is tucked into one elbow. Her bronze-colored hair is covered by a white cap. Her small, dark eyes gaze, unfocused, toward us. She has a wide face and the hint of a double chin. She wears a muted red jacket over a frayed white shirt. The red is echoed in the tall, narrow glass of liquid the boy holds near one knee, to our right. Light glints off his arctic-blue eyes as he gazes at the old man. Pale blue shadows make the skin around the boy’s delicate nose, eyes, and mouth look almost translucent. His full pink lips are closed. His ash-brown hair is choppily cut and also tousled. He holds a jug in one hand and the glass in the other. A pewter plate and spoon rest on the barrel, and the plate holds a mound of unidentifiable, peach-colored food. The young girl stands at a tall hearth on the left side of the room beyond the man and woman. She faces our left and looks down, her face warmed to rosy pink by the fire below. She wears a brown pinafore, and stands of brown hair escape from her cap. In the background to our right is an open door next to a table or wooden shelf holding a pot, at least one plate, and a ladle.
Louis Le Nain, Peasant Interior, c. 1645, oil on canvas, Samuel H. Kress Collection, 1952.2.20

Peasant Interior

Louis Le Nain · c. 1645 · oil on canvas ·  Accession ID  1952.2.20

An elderly woman sits on a small stool and four children stand along the foreground of a landscape with rolling, olive-green fields leading back to low, slate-gray mountains in this nearly square painting. The horizon comes about halfway up the painting, and the sky above is filled with a sheet of steel-gray clouds that break to reveal patches of ice-blue sky. Closest to us and along the left edge of the painting, the woman sits near a structure with a fragment of wall and a column that could be made from tan-colored stone. The woman faces our right in profile and looks at or toward three children gathered on a low hill to our right. Her lined face is partially cast in shadow by her white bonnet, but her skin is yellowed where the light falls across the side closer to us. A wide, white collar lies over the shoulders of her muted, plum-purple jacket, which is tied with a narrow red belt. Her hands rest in the lap of her full, moss-green skirt that falls to her feet and covers most of the stool. To our right, two boys and a little girl stand on a low hill. They all stand with their bodies angled to our right, and all have pale skin and brown hair. To our left in the trio, the young girl wears a royal-blue dress with brick-red, long sleeves and a wide, white collar, cuffs, and cap. Next to her, a slightly older boy wearing gray knee-britches, a honey-orange jacket with a white collar, and a blue tricorn hat looks down and plays a thin pipe. His jacket is torn at the elbows, revealing a red shirt beneath. To our right, the oldest boy wears a brown cloak over a gray jacket, tan trousers, and a tan brimmed hat. He holds his right arm, closer to us, across his chest as he touches an instrument nestled in the crook of his other elbow. Another bareheaded boy wearing a red shirt and blue trousers walks beyond this trio, holding a short pole over one shoulder and a brimmed hat in his other hand. He walks to our left and looks to the horizon. More people with sheep, cows, and a person on horseback dot the rolling fields that stretch back to low hills. One house sits next to a line of trees to the left of center, in the middle distance, and more buildings, including a church spire, cluster on the horizon to our right.
Louis Le Nain, Landscape with Peasants, c. 1640, oil on canvas, Samuel H. Kress Collection, 1946.7.11

Landscape with Peasants

Louis Le Nain · c. 1640 · oil on canvas ·  Accession ID  1946.7.11

Bibliography

1978

  • Thuillier, Jacques. Les frères Le Nain. Exh. cat. Galeries nationales du Grand Palais, Paris, 1978.

1993

  • Rosenberg, Pierre. Tout l'oeuvre peint des Le Nain. Paris, 1993.

2009

  • Conisbee, Philip, et al. French Paintings of the Fifteenth through the Eighteenth Century. The Collections of the National Gallery of Art Systematic Catalogue. Washington, D.C., 2009: 317.