Musées de Langres – Maison des Lumières Denis Diderot – Musée d'Art et d'Histoire

A woman steps through her neighbour’s open door and discovers a scene of desolation: a mother’s lifeless, emaciated body, probably starved or frozen to death. At her bedside are two children, still alive under a warming ray of spring sunshine. Viewers can surmise – but are not told – the mother’s private drama. As they take in the bare walls of her very modest interior and the pride she took in her well-kept home, they can guess that she was very alone and that any food was for the children first… This scene was inspired by a passage from the poem “Les Pauvres Gens” (The Poor) in Victor Hugo’s La Légende des siècles (The Legend of the Centuries), written between 1855 and 1876.
Alizard, a Langres painter, wished to bear witness to the harsh realities of life. Painted in the spirit of mid-19th century realism, the work displays the period’s taste for shocking news items.