Subject
Three figures, two men and a woman, sit in a cramped domestic space (possibly a bedroom). Firelight from the hearth of the title provides the only illumination. The two males converse over the head of the female, who appears to be sewing a garment whose form simultaneously suggests a swaddled infant at her breast. The genre image has a narrative or illustrative dimension, comparable to Edgar Degas later painting Interieur, Le Viol of 1868.
Le Foyer is sylistically similar to Legros' etched illustrations to Duranty (S0 0033) and Champfleury (SO 0034). Like his earlier etchings of working-class women attending the Parisian church of St. Medard, this approach was informed by the work of contemporary British illustrators such as George Cruickshank and Charles Keene. Legros seems to have moved on from this ‘vernacular’ graphic style shortly after his relocation to London in 1861.
An impression, titled Près de la cheminée in the catalogue, was amongst the etchings exhibited by Legros at the second Impressionist Exhibition in 1876.
