Jules Breton

M. de Maingoval (acquired from the Salon of 1865)
Private Collection, Argentina

Paris, Salon, 1865, no. 295
Paris, Exposition Universelle, 1867, no. 88 (lent by de Maingoval)

Félix Jahyer, Salon de 1865, Paris, 1865, pp. 110; 115-7
Maxime Du Camp, Les Beaux Arts à l'Exposition universelle et aux Salons de 1863, 1864, 1865, 1866, et 1867, Paris, 1867, p. 165
Léon Lagrange, "Le Salon de 1865," Le Correspondant, May 25, 1865, p. 151
M. Hamel, Revue Nationale et Etrangère, June 10, 1865, p. 291
Jules Breton, La Vie d'un Artiste, Paris, 1890, p. 86
Marius Vachon, Jules Breton, 1909, p. 153, illustrated opp. p. 6 and as cover
Annette Bourrut Lacouture, Jules Breton, Painter of Peasant Life, New Haven, 2002, pp. 124-5, 251, illustrated p. 125, fig. 87 (with present location unknown)

The following condition report was kindly provided by Simon Parkes Art Conservation, Inc.: This work has probably not been seriously restored for a long while. However, the varnish may have been freshened and some retouches added more recently. The canvas on which it is painted has been mounted onto a piece of Masonite. The work has been selectively cleaned, retouched and varnished. The work reads in a very ambiguous way under ultraviolet light, but one can see with the naked eye that abrasion has not occurred in many areas. The figure of the girl, the lighter colors of the background and much of the floor seem to be very healthy. The left edge, across the top edge and some of the right edge show damages. It is the darker colors in the seated male figure, in the table to his left and particularly in the fireplace and mantelpiece where there has been abrasion and subsequent retouching. Thinness will be revealed in these areas if the picture is cleaned. While it would be ideal if the canvas were removed from the board, this would be an extensive and lengthy undertaking. The work should ultimately be properly cleaned and retouched more accurately, although these retouches will be extensive, particularly in the fireplace.
"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."

While Jules Breton had exhibited his work for well over a decade, earning favorable reviews and important commissions, his two Salon submissions of 1865, La fin de la journée  (fig. 1) and La lecture, brought the artist the greatest critical success of his career to date.  Despite the accolades, both works were soon lost, and only today has La lecture reemerged, illustrated for the first time in color — evidencing why one Salon critic believed the painting “said it all, and said it true” (as translated from Jahyer, p. 177).

La lecture earned acclaim from the moment it was delivered to the Palais de l’Industrie’s storage room.  As the artist bashfully admitted to his wife Élodie, from government officials to fellow artists, “everyone seems to be agreed that my gleaners and my little… [La lecture] are much better than anything I have done hereto” (as quoted in Bourrut Lacouture, p. 124).  La lecture depicts an older man sitting in an armchair, chin resting on his walking stick as he dutifully listens to a young woman’s reading, her pursuit of the perfect volume suggested by the discarded pile of books on the floor. While interior scenes like La lecture are relatively rare in Breton’s oeuvre, the subject of a young woman engaged in domestic activity evidenced his longstanding appreciation of seventeenth-century Dutch painting (critic Félix Jahyer likened the work to those by Golden Age genre painter Frans van Mieris).  The composition also likely held personal resonance for the artist, as the man is modeled after his cousin Isidore Lecorcq, who appears in his early masterpiece Plantation d'un calvaire (1858, Palais des beaux-arts, Lille), while the dried poppy stalks set in a niche by the fireplace in the present work recall the stems “Zidore” braided into whips for the artist when he was a boy (Bourrut Lacouture, p. 124). As demonstrated by an early compositional sketch for La lecture, the young woman was originally less elegantly posed and sitting in a more rustic room; the refinements to the reader’s elegant profile in the finished work prompted critics to call her the “angel of the house” (fig. 2). The sanctity of the domestic space is further highlighted by the ceramic sculpture of the Virgin and Child set high on the mantel (leading some to believe the girl is reading the Bible). The quiet simplicity of the space and the artist’s naturalistic technique in painting the figures stand in contrast to the statuesque fieldworkers of his agrarian works like La fin de la journée, in which the two central gleaners are configured as ennobled classical figures.  In La lecture’s subdued colors and carefully chosen details Breton revealed a connection between the artist, subject and the viewer.  Interpreting the scene, his contemporaries thought its mix of real and ideal conveyed a message of the passage of time or the importance of a peaceful home. 

Despite the accolades, Breton did not win the gold medal for either of his Salon submissions of 1865. As he explained, “I do not think that I have produced a masterpiece, but I cannot stop others from using the word — it rings so loudly in the ears of envious souls”  (as quoted in Bourrut Lacouture, p. 125).  Breton points to the conflicts of interest prevalent in the Salon jury, made up of fellow artists who essentially were judging the works of their competitors. Likely for this reason, the year’s top prize was given to the “safe choice” of Alexandre Cabanel and his very traditional portrait of Napoleon III.  Ironically, Napoleon purchased La fin de la journée for 10,000 francs, while Monsieur de Maingoval bought La Lecture for 5,000 (and later lent it to the Exposition Universelle of 1867, where Breton would finally win a medal of the première classe).  Ultimately public appreciation was what mattered most for the artist, who believed “I was the recipient of an even greater ovation because the public did not agree with the jury’s choice” (as quoted in Bourrut Lacouture, p. 125).