Late summer would have signified harvest time, and this is the scene depicted in our painting. One of the busiest times of the farm calendar, the harvest was when the wheat needed to be threshed, gathered and stacked. This late summer labor would have been a familiar sight for Lhermitte, and in fact, it was the subject for many of his pictures in oil, pastel and charcoal. Here, his two peasants work rhythmically as they cut paths through the windswept field, piling the stalks of wheat in bunches, ready to be bundled by their fellow workers who we can only imagine, while not visible in this picture, are also part of the scene observed by the artist. The sun shines brightly on the soft golden tips of the wheat in the distance.

Lhermitte was one of the most accomplished pastellistes of his generation, only rivalled by fellow artist, Jean François Millet. While our painting is done in oil, the brushwork of quick hatches and dashes of color, almost dry like a pastel crayon, reveals that Lhermitte’s pastel technique also transferred to his work in oil paints. Equally, many times his pastels are so complete they have the finish of what one expects to see in an oil painting.