Girl selling hay in San Germano
After obtaining the First Grand Prix de Rome for painting in 1839, Ernest Hébert moved to Italy and was quickly fascinated by the country he discovered. Returning to France at the end of 1847, he obtained his first success at the Salon of 1850-1851 with La mal'aria (Musée d'Orsay), a painting representing peasants from the Pontine marshes. He traveled again to Italy in 1853-1855 and arrived in San Germano, in the north of the country, on the morning of October 28, 1853. From the window of the room he rented, he discovered the spectacle of young girls selling hay - les fienaroles - and decides to stay to make a table. He immediately looked for models, transformed his room into a workshop and remained there until January 7, 1854.
The finished work is presented in Paris at the Salon of 1857. It is because he is tired of history painting and workshop conventions that Hébert turns to subjects of everyday life, drawn from the Italian countryside. His preference goes towards young girls with pensive and smoky eyes. This approach is not without analogy with the realism of time, despite a certain sentimentalism. In a letter to the landscape designer Jules Dupré, written from San Germano, Hébert explains his new orientation: "I want to talk about what led me to come and do a painting in a bad inn in the Apennines [... ">. I have resolved not to paint more than the thing or the fact that will have moved me. I believe that it is the best way to remain truly an artist and to walk in the path of originality ".
(Info from the site: translated, and added )
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