Boy Reading

The prolific draftsman Albert Lebourg is largely remembered as a painter of Impressionist landscapes, but his artistic world was more varied. He ran an art school in Algeria, traveled to Egypt, invented fantasy battles, and occasionally worked in a Realist vein. As a dignified image of a modest, probably rural subject, this drawing belongs to the latter aspect of his activity.

The young boy sits in a simple chair with his head down, looking intently at the book in his lap. It is a chilly time of year. He wears a jacket and props his foot up on a warming box with holes in the top to let heat rise from smoldering embers that would be in an earthenware dish inside.

Though undated, the drawing probably comes from 1885, when Lebourg was in the town of Pont du Château in France's Auvergne region, painting snow scenes of the area.