Boy Asleep in the Hay

By 1897, when this was painted, Anker had spent decades watching the same Bernese farms through the working year, and haymaking was among the hardest stretches of it, long days cutting and turning the grass before the weather could spoil it. Here he leaves the labour out of the frame and keeps only its edge, a farm boy who has dropped into the cut hay and fallen asleep. Sleeping and dozing figures were something Anker returned to again and again, an old man nodding by the stove, a child gone still in the afternoon. He gives this boy the same steady attention he gave grown sitters, on a small canvas about 55 by 71 centimetres.