An Elderly Peasant Woman

Léon-Augustin Lhermitte

National Gallery of Art

This vertical charcoal and chalk drawing shows the head and shoulders of a light-skinned, elderly woman facing our left almost in profile. Light from our left falls across her jowled, deeply wrinkled face. She looks off to our left with clear, deep-set eyes under a raised brow. She has a long, bulbous nose, and her wide mouth is closed, her thin lips set. Her hair is covered by a long scarf tied at the base of her head, and one end falls over the shoulder closer to us. There appears to be a kerchief wrapped around her neck, and a loose-fitting jacket is buttoned all the way up. She is shown against a background filled with swipes of charcoal with dark shadows around her that get lighter in the upper right. Barely visible against the gray background, the artist signed the lower left, “Leon Lhermitte.”