Peasants Resting and Dancing

This drawing shows a group of peasants relaxing and dancing to a piper in the sunshine by the side of a farmhouse. The present drawing can be dated to the 1780s, when Pillement was living in the south of France.

Pillement had returned home, after working in the Iberian Peninsula, in the same year that the French Revolution broke out. Due to his ties to the monarchy, it seems probable that Pillement felt he was in some danger, and so rather than settle in Paris, or his native Lyon, he moved near the small town of P�zenas in the H�rault region. Here he found himself surrounded by a spectacular landscape that was to greatly influence his work.