The Three Sisters
On loan to The Met
This work of art is currently on loan to the museum.In the 1890s Frederic’s paintings of impoverished workers and peasants in his native Belgium were celebrated for their forthrightness and arresting intensity. Here, the humdrum activity of peeling potatoes is vivified by the girls’ bright red dresses and gleaming red-gold and blond hair. Their downcast eyes and serene expressions recall representations of the young Virgin Mary in sixteenth-century Flemish art, which Frederic greatly admired. Nothing is known of the sitters beyond the painting’s title, which identifies them as sisters; the two eldest are so uncannily alike that they appear to be twins.
Artwork Details
- Title: The Three Sisters
- Artist: Léon Frederic (Belgian, Brussels 1856–1940 Brussels)
- Date: 1896
- Medium: Oil on canvas
- Dimensions: 47 1/2 × 37 3/8 in. (120.5 × 95 cm)
- Classification: Paintings
- Credit Line: Private collection
- Object Number: L.2015.80
- Curatorial Department: European Paintings