Landscape with figures, or the Resting Horseman (La Halte du Cavalier)

Landscape with figures, or the Resting Horseman (La Halte du Cavalier)
Probably by Louis Le Nain (1593-1648)
Probably 1640s
Paris
Oil on canvas
54.6 x 67.3 cm
Museum no. CAI.17
Bequeathed by Constantine Alexander Ionides

The brothers Antoine, Louis and Mathieu Le Nain shared a studio in Paris from about 1630. They specialised in scenes of the poor, depicting them with a sombre dignity that was unusual for the period. These paintings were once criticised for ‘their low and often ridiculous actions’, but by the 1850s they were admired for their realism.