This tonal drawing depicts a funeral procession in a church. A sea of mourners—mostly women wearing white bonnets—solemnly curves around the aisles of the church from the right corner in the background to the left corner in the foreground, passing by the coffin placed diagonally and slightly right of center on the sheet. Mourners file past the coffin on the left, heads bowed and handkerchiefs held to their faces. In the lower left corner stands a weeping woman who clutches the hand of a young girl. The mourners’ plain dark robes and their soft, hazy forms convey sadness and a sense of loss punctuated by the white caps, smaller in the back and larger in the foreground, suggesting the rhythm of a slow, solemn procession. The work is signed “L. Lhermitte” in the bottom right corner.

written by Emma Lyandres, St. Andrews University, Scotland, 2022