L'approvisionnement des Halles, esquisse pour l'Hôtel de Ville de Paris

Léon Augustin Lhermitte's esquisse for the Hôtel de Ville depicting 'L'approvisionnement des Halles' (The Provisioning of the Halles, 1888) was a preparatory study for a panel celebrating the workers who supplied Paris's great central market — Les Halles — with produce from the surrounding countryside. Lhermitte was the foremost painter of French rural labor, known for his dignified, Millet-influenced images of agricultural workers; his selection for this commission was entirely appropriate. The subject allowed him to bring his characteristic sympathy for working-class labor to an official civic context, giving the Hôtel de Ville a democratic dimension alongside its more allegorical panels. The work is in the Petit Palais.

The esquisse establishes the composition of working figures — peasants and market workers with their produce and vehicles — in the characteristic broad, dignified manner Lhermitte used for rural labor scenes. The handling is assured and direct, with attention to the physical reality of the labor depicted rather than allegorical elegance.