Le Viatique

I came across this picture on a conservative Roman Catholic website (not that I spend much time hanging around such places). I guessed it was late 19th-century French, an impression confirmed when a friend identified the artist as Aimé Perret, 1847-1927, not that I can find out much about him. It's called 'Le Saint Viatique': the sacrament is being taken to someone dying on a winter's day in Burgundy, in 1879.
I think this is a lovely image. Clearly in this community death is not just a private matter for the person and their family, but through the involvement of the Church everyone is concerned and everyone knows. The Host being taken through the ice and snow speaks very strongly of Christ's presence in the most difficult of circumstances, mediated through the human beings who are his Body. And as one friend commented, the second boy acolyte looks like someone 'being snapped with a camera who didn't want his photo taken'.