The following condition report was kindly provided by Simon Parkes Art Conservation, Inc.: This painting is in beautiful condition. It has never been removed from its original stretcher, and is therefore unlined. Cracking has developed in the sky, but not in a disturbing fashion. The painting seems to be cleaned. The sheep are quite loosely painted, as is the bulk of the darker portion of the background, but the hands, face and the lit areas of the background are very well preserved, and clearly this is a picture in good condition.
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As a regular contributor to the exhibitions of the Société Nationale des Beaux-Arts from its inception in 1890 well into the twentieth century, Émile Friant effectively increased his national and international reputation.  His fame became even greater when, in 1889, the French government selected his large-scale canvas of La Toussaint (Musée des Beaux-Arts, Nancy) for display at the Musée du Luxembourg (founded by Louis XVIII in 1818 to feature the works of living artists), where only the best examples of contemporary painting were put on public exhibition. The theme of this painting, drawn from the life of his native city of Nancy, focused on a yearly ritual where family members went to the local cemetery to pay respects to departed relatives. With this canvas, Friant also revealed that he was capable of handling contemporary themes, of notable importance in the life of his countrymen, on a large scale, thus creating contemporary history on canvas. He maintained this direction throughout a good part of his career with other large paintings, such as a scene set at graveside as in La Douleur of 1898 (Musée des Beaux-Arts, Nancy).

Among the other paintings that reflect Friant's interest in sympathetic themes that stressed devotion and personal reflection was a work exhibited at the 1902 Salon of the Société Nationale. This canvas, called either L'Orpheline or Jeune fille en prières, (The Orphan or Young Girl Praying) (dated 1901), shows an adolescent girl, dressed in black, kneeling in a landscape, perhaps at a gravesite, where flowers have been placed. With this work of a child🔯 prayi🐬ng, Friant created a tender moment of calm introspection that reflects family loss or simply a need to find a moment to pray for a particular purpose or wish.  

The artist much taken with the pose of his young girl completed a fusain of only the kneeling child in preparation for his paintingജ. For an artist trained in the academic tradition it is not unusual to find this type of preparatory work and there could be other drawings for the 1902 Salon painting. What this method clearly underscores is that Friant took great care to create his compositions. He always had a specific meaning or mood that he wanted to convey in his compositions, which means that the placement of his figures and the surrounding details that expanded the narrative had tඣo be carefully planned.

Friant, wanting to be known as more than a painter, worked extensively in other media, including drawing and etching. In 1913, he produced a dry-point that recalls his earlier painting of the Orphan, as well as his commitment to themes with a personal sense of melancholy. In Angelus, Friant reprised the kneeling figure of the praying adolescent. But instead of having her situated within a pure landscape, among flowers and trees, he modified his🏅 composition (fig. 1). While the young girl is still dressed in a black she is now placed in an environment that reveals sheep grazing off to the left, and a church in the distance, whose steeple is not visible. The sense of intense piety r🔯emains; it is as if the young girl is praying in the fields at a certain time of the day. Her intense spirituality conveys a deeper symbolism recalling earlier field compositions such as those developed by Jean-François Millet in the nineteenth century.

While this etching suggests the direction of some other works by Friant, linked to the theme of Angelus, attention must center on the present painting.  In this mood drenched composition, where the figure takes on a spiritual glow, akin to some of the religious﷽ works by William Bouguereau, the painting is the reverse of the later etching. The young girl is brought closer to the foreground plane almost moving into the space of the viewer. The sheep at the right crowd around her and the church steeple is more visible in the background. What remains unclear is whether the present painting was intended as a preliminary oil painting for a larger canvas not yet located. The fact that Friant used the composition again in his 1913 etching reinforces his interest in suggesting values of piety, intense spirituality, and a love of country at a moment when the war clouds were gathering and the region of Alsace-Lorraine was about to be plunged into disaster and chaos. It is a very moving example of the artist's ability to reuse a theme while maintaining his intense mood of introspection.