Jules Breton

Sale: Sotheby's, New York, May 23, 1990, lot 29, illustrated
Private American Collector

Annette Bourrut Lacouture, Jules Breton, Painter of Peasant Life, New Haven, 2002, p. 116, illustrated fig. 72

The following condition report was kindly provided by Simon Parkes Art Conservation, Inc.: This painting has been quite recently restored and can be hung in its current condition. The canvas has been lined using glue as an adhesive. The paint layer is stable. The texture is slightly pressed as a result of successive linings, but the painting looks well nonetheless. Under ultraviolet light there are no retouches of any note visible and it is likely that there are none. The work is painted in a muscular way and the paint layer is very healthy.
"This lot is offered for sale subject to Sotheby's Conditions of Business, which are available on request and printed in Sotheby's sale catalogues. The independent reports contained in this document are provided for prospective bidders' information only and without warranty by Sotheby's or the Seller."

By the early 1860s, Breton enjoyed both professional success with works like The Recall of the Gleaners (Le rappel des glaneuses, 1859, Musée d'Orsay, Paris) and a happy home life with wife Élodie and newborn daughter Virginie.  With these achievements came an eagerness to explore new ideas and find inspiration beyond his village of Courrières, its people and landscape, which had been the subject of many of his most popular works to date.  Coincidentally, as Breton made plans to travel to the south of France, the Comte Duchâtel, former minister to Louis Philippe, invited the artist to his expansive vineyard estate at Château Lagrange, near Bordeaux. Elected a member of the Académie in 1856, Duchâtel was attracted to Breton's realistic yet poetic depictions of rural life (then a relatively new choice of subject), and commissioned the artist to paint a pendant to his previously acquired  The Weeders (Les sarcleuses, 1860, Josyln Art Museum, Omaha). Breton journeyed to the Château Lagrange in 1862, and on arrival quickly became immersed in the daily life of the vineyard and his gracious hosts.  Over two months, the artist painted the home, a portrait of the Comte, members of his family, and vignettes of the laborers in the vineyards. When Breton left Lagrange at the end of October in 1862, he took several paintings with him, including the present work, from which the right-hand woman would become a central figure of the finished painting The Vintage at Château Lagrange (Les Vendanges à Château Lagrange, 1864, fig. 1, Bourrut Lacouture, p. 116).

Just as the hard-working peasant women of Courrières had served as ideal subjects for Breton, those of Bordeaux, like the women captured in the present work, proved inspirational as well.  As he wrote to wife Élodie: "I must tell you of something that really impressed me, this is the admirable type of woman to be found in this part of the country.  They have the kind of looks I always want for paintings, you know, graceful features but with something slightly wild about them, elegant figures, sun-tanned, slightly olive compositions and magnificent black hair" (as quoted in Bourrut Lacouture, p. 113).  Despite his enthusiasm for the vineyard and the people who lived and worked there, upon returning to his home studio Breton struggled to capture the light and atmosphere of the vineyard on a large canvas; bad weather during his stay, coupled with the luxurious lifestyle he enjoyed, caused delays in completing the final composition.  He abandoned plans for the painting until the autumn of 1863, following a repeat visit to the Château-Lagrange to observe a second harvest (Bourrut Lacouture, pp. 112-22; Hollister Sturges, ed, Jules Breton and the French Rural Tradition, exh. cat., Omaha, 1983, p. 76). The completed picture was finally exhibited at the Salon of 1864  and received favorable reviews. Charles de Moüy praised the well-observed naturalism of the scene, writing: "to find poetry in nature seen at close range, rather than in more conventional areas, is to emulate the greater masters and to enter onto the right road" ("Le Salon de 1864," Revue française, vol. 8, no. 44, June 1, 1864, p. 233, as quoted in Bourrut Lacouture, p. 122).

The impressive final composition masked the challenge of its execution, made possible by the studies and paintings Breton made at the vineyard.  The present work is particularly important as it both strengthens an understanding of the finished painting and is an evocative composition itself.  The intimate scale affords the viewer a unique relationship with the two harvesters, baskets heavy with grapes as they pause on return from the vineyards.  The contrasting color palette of the harvesters' costumes, the use of light and shadow, and the contrast of bold application of paint with looser brushwork further convey the particular atmosphere of the region and countenance of its people. Breton's experiences and memories, so carefully recorded and easily understood in the present work, later allowed him to render a painting Castagnary considered "charming and delightful, because it is all real" (Jules-Antoine Castagnary, Salons 1857-79, Paris, 1892, vol. 1, p. 195 as quoted in Bourrut Lacouture, p. 122).