At the Farm: Scene from Zola's The Sin of Father Mouret

This curious drawing is the first entry in the catalog raisonné of the artist's works on paper and is among his earliest efforts as a draftsman. Schuffenecker made this design to illustrate Emile Zola's "The Sin of Friar Mouret" ("La Faute de l'Abbé Mouret"), the fifth novel in the author's twenty-volume Rougon-Maquart cycle. The scene depicts a passage from Book III, Chapter VII, which focuses on Albine, the girl seated at right, a feral character representing the untutored, natural state of youth and the object of Abbé Mouret's desire. Désirée Mouret is seated to her left, gazing up at Albine in admiration as she is lost in thought.
In addition to this compositional study, Schuffenecker made detailed studies of both figures on a sheet executed in charcoal with white chalk highlights (See Grossvogel 2001, no. 2).