Peasant Family in an Interior, Louis or Antoine Le Nain, 1642

The three Le Nain brothers were painters in 17th-century France: Antoine Le Nain (c.1599-1648), Louis Le Nain (c.1593-1648), and Mathieu Le Nain (1607–1677). They produced genre works, portraits and portrait miniatures.

Because of the similarity of their styles of painting and the difficulty of distinguishing works by each brother (they signed their paintings only with their surname, and many may have been collaborations), they are commonly referred to as a single entity, Le Nain. Louis is usually credited with the best-known of their paintings, a series of scenes depicting peasant life; he may have visited Italy, and been influenced by the Dutch artist Pieter van Laer, who was based in Rome but also passed through France in the mid-1620s.^[5] These genre paintings are often noted for being remarkably literal, yet sympathetic; the subjects are never grotesque or seem ridiculed.