Jules Breton

The Artist's Studio; sale: Galerie Georges Petit, Paris, June 2-3, 1911, lot 36
Private Collection, Switzerland (from circa 1989)

On stable panel, minor frame abrasion to lower left; under UV: heavy varnish fluoresces, 1 inch by 1 inch spot of inpainting center horizon line, other scattered pindots of inpainting in the sky, possible areas of inpainting to figures, difficult to read under varnish.
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The present work is a vivid sketch by Breton in preparation for his masterpiece, Le Rappel des glaneuses of 1859, now at the Musée d'Orsay, Paris. The sketch was likely completed circa 1855-1857 as it has a stylistic similarity with the aritist's Le départ pour les champs (1857) as well sharing similar figures such as the two girls chatting confidentially or the central peasant girl singing as she carries sheaves of wheat.  Overall, the vigorous handling of paint, the free and dynamic manner of the composition, and the use of contrasting brown, earth and light, white tones are typical of Breton's work of 1855-57.