Joan of Arc at Domrémy

In the early fifteenth century, Joan of Arc was directed by divine voices to help France regain the territory it had lost to England. After being burned at the stake for heresy, she was later pardoned and eventually canonized. In part because of the French nineteenth-century fascination for all things medieval, she became a favorite subject for artists. Her popularity surged further after the Franco-Prussian War, owing to her origins in Lorraine and her fame as savior of her country.

Here, she appears as a young peasant girl with folded knees and clasped hands. The upward tilt of her gaze helps identify her as Joan in the absence of any details of place. Interestingly, however, the work’s title specifies the setting as Domremy, the village in which she first heard voices from beyond the earthly realm.