Pencil sketch of a woman carrying wheat sheaves

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Here a woman bends under a load of wheat sheaves, drawn in pencil with the quick, economical lines of someone sketching from life rather than composing a finished canvas. Harvest scenes like this one were a favorite subject for American artists in the nineteenth and early twentieth centuries, when grain gathering was still largely manual work and the figure of the laboring woman carried symbolic weight about abundance and gratitude. Its place on a Thanksgiving board makes sense, since the autumn harvest was the season that prompted the holiday's traditions of giving thanks for the year's yield. Look closely at the way the sheaves are bound and the tension in her stance, which convey the physical effort behind the abundance the holiday celebrates.

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