Children Dancing
Le Nain·c. 1650
Historical Context
Children Dancing by one of the Le Nain brothers (c. 1650) captures the peasant subjects for which this family workshop became famous. The three Le Nain brothers — Antoine, Louis, and Mathieu — worked collaboratively in Paris, making attribution of individual works notoriously difficult. Their dignified, sympathetic depictions of French peasant life were unprecedented in French painting and remain their most enduring achievement. Unlike the comic or grotesque peasant scenes common in Flemish art, the Le Nain peasants possess a quiet gravity and human dignity that anticipates the social realism of later centuries.
Technical Analysis
The painting displays the Le Nain workshop's characteristic muted, silvery palette and direct, unidealized treatment of humble figures, with careful attention to the textures of simple clothing and the natural gestures of children at play.
Provenance
Count Ottone Ponte di Scarnafigi of Sardinia (died 1788);; Count Louis de Seyssel, Turin, sold to Salmon P. Halle, 1916; Salmon P. Halle, upon his death, by inheritance to his wife.; Mrs. Salmon P. Halle, by gift to the Cleveland Museum of Art, 1957.
