The Weaver (Le tisserand)

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.