The Reaper

This bronze statue by Constantin Meunier is a part of Meunier's great yet unfinished artistic project the Glorification of Labour which had the ambition of representing numerous types from the different tasks the population accomplished to earn a living. Here the reaping in the fields is represented, a laborious and fastidious task that takes place in the summer. Meunier's reprentation is realist as belonging to the artistic movement of realism: he makes the choice to represent what the daily life of the developping working class looks like.