Jules Breton

M. Tesse, Nîmes (possibly acquired through the National Lottery at the Salon of 1859)
Private Collector (acquired from the above)
Private Collector (by descent from the above and sold, Christie's, New York, February 18, 1997, lot 10, illustrated)
Acquired at the above sale

Paris, Salon, 1859, no. 412 (as Une couturière)
Arras, Musée des Beaux-Arts, Jules et Emile Breton, peintres de l'Artois, 1977 (no published catalogue)
The Cleveland Museum of Art; The Brooklyn Museum; The St. Louis Art Museum; Kelvingrove, Glasgow Art Gallery and Museum, The Realist Tradition, French Painting and Drawing, 1830-1900, November 1980-January 1982, no. 70 as The Seamstress (lent from a Private collection, Paris)

Zacharie Astruc, Les 14 Stations, Paris, 1859, pp. 226-7
Louis Auvray, Exposition des beaux-arts: Salon de 1859, Paris, p. 41
Ernest Chesneau, Le Salon de 1859, Paris, 1859, p. 56
Maxime du Camp, Le Salon de 1859, Paris, 1859, p. 39
Alexandre Dumas, Le Salon de 1859, Paris, 1859, pp. 54-5
Henri Dumesnil, Le Salon de 1859, Paris, 1859, p. 34
Marius Chaumelin, Portraits d'artistes, E. Meissonier, J. Breton, Paris, 1887, p. 91
Hustin, L'Estafete, November 1, 1888
E. B. de Lépinois, L'art dans la rue de l'art au Salon, Paris, 1859, p. 149
Paul Mantz, "Salon de 1859," Gazette des Beaux-Arts, June 1859, p. 286
Annette Bourrut Lacouture, Jules Breton, Painter of Peasant Life, New Haven, 2002, p. 102, 254, illustrated p. 102, fig. 63 

The following condition report was kindly provided by Simon Parkes Art Conservation, Inc.: This work has probably been fairly recently restored. There are remnants of old varnish visible under ultraviolet light, but there is no reason to continue with the cleaning. The work is in lovely condition. This is a particularly good early example by the artist. The canvas is unlined. The paint layer is in wonderful state. The only retouch seems to be in the upper left where a small loss has occurred. Some restoration is visible on the reverse in this area. The work should be hung as is.
"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."

At the Paris Salon of 1859, 3,045 paintings submitted by 1,278 artists competed for the attention of the visiting crowds.  Among the expected historical, biblical, and mythological subjects of the old guard were an increasing number of expressive landscapes and genre paintings of “everyday” life, pointing toward the growing hold of Realism.  Hanging between the Salon staltwarts Delacroix and Corot were four works by Jules Breton, which critics hailed as confirmation of his early potential (Henri Loyrette, “The Salon of 1859,” Origins of Impressionism, exh. cat., The Metropolitan Museum of Art, New York, 1994, pp. 5-7).  While three of the four works were large in scale and populated by multiple figures, including what remains among his most iconic paintings, Le Rappel des glaneuses (Musée d’Orsay, Paris), La petite couturière is an intimate and quiet composition of a single figure.  In the present work, a young woman sits absorbed in her mending, the room undecorated save for two painted ceramics atop a cupboard; the open sewing box, a ball of white thread, and a full basket of fabrics suggest a long task ahead.  Interior scenes are relatively rare in the artist’s oeuvre, and the subject of a woman engaged in domestic work evidences Breton’s appreciation of seventeenth-century Dutch painters.  However, its comparatively simple interior, use of cropped picture space, and contrasts of light and shadow, add to the intimacy of the scene, a focus on the model, and the appreciation of her work  (Bourrut Lacoutre, p. 52; Gabriel P. Weisberg, The Realist Tradition, exh. cat., 1982, p. 101). As such La petite couturière beautifully supports the art theorist Théophile Thoré’s support of domestic life as an important subject for Realist painting. (It was no coincidence that Thoré, a supporter of Breton, is also credited with “rediscovering” Vermeer).  Likewise, after attending the Salon of 1859 the critic Alfred de Montaiglon found evidence that “modern costumes” should be accepted and that contemporary artists should “paint… the subjects of our time.  Women in a garden, an intimate chat by the fireside, a visit, a ball, a farewell, a return, in a word all the scenes of life” (Anatole de Montaiglon, “La Peinture au Salon de 1859,” Revue universelle des arts, April-September 1859, pp. 481-2, as translated and quoted in Loyrette, p. 27). Works like La petite couturière would build the foundation for the Impressionists to follow: tellingly, early works by Edgar Degas and Camille Pissarro hung alongside Breton’s in 1859.

While La petite couturière was one of several pictures in the Salon of 1859 that could be used to promote “new” paintings of rural and domestic life, for Breton the themes were less political than personal, and ones which he continued to explore throughout his long career.  La petite couturière likely had specific personal associations for the artist: the model was Elodie, his beloved wife, her quiet work conveying the peace and contentment of their home life. This connection between subject, artist, and viewer did not go unnoticed by the greater Salon establishment — La petite couturière was purchased for 1500 francs on April 20, 1859 by the National Lottery Commission, the program created by the Second Empire to make art more accessible to a greater public. Though unfairly dismissed by some critics as being too small, La petite couturière was a smart selection for the Lottery, its easily recognizable subject, both pleasing a new generation of collectors while promoting the nation’s artists (Weisberg, p. 101).