91 - Jules BRETON (1827–1906)

Jules BRETON (1827–1906) Young Peasant Girl Weeding (Study for “Les Sarcleuses”), 1860 Oil on canvas (re-stretched) Signed and dated “J. Breton 1860” (lower right) 26 x 32 cm With frame: 41.5 x 47 cm (Restorations) PROVENANCE - Private collection, Paris, in the 1990s, then passed down through the family. BIBLIOGRAPHY: - A. Bourrut Lacouture, Jules Breton. Catalogue Raisonné. Paintings, Paris, 2025, p. 123, no. 1860-11 (this work is illustrated). RELATED WORKS - Jules Breton, *Les Sarcleuses*, oil on canvas, 71.4 x 127.6 cm, 1868, Metropolitan Museum of Art, New York (inv. 25.110.66) - Jules Breton, *The Weeders*, oil on canvas, 94 x 168.9 cm, 1860, 1861 Salon, Joslyn Art Museum, Omaha (inv. 1984.47) “I will paint everything from life.” With these words addressed to his uncle in 1853, Jules Breton announced his intention to follow in the footsteps of Millet and Corot; it was indeed his closeness to the peasant world that provided the artist with the subjects for his paintings: “[…] Jules Breton was very familiar with the communal structure, the living conditions, and the difficulties faced by many of the residents of Courrières [...]”; so much so that “there are serendipitous moments when nature provides the painter with a ready-made scene.” It was in 1860 that the artist painted *Les Sarcleuses* (Omaha, Nebraska, United States, Joslyn Art Museum), a composition then described as a “natural transfiguration of the simplest of labors,” which was a great success at the 1861 Paris Salon (no. 426). In his autobiography, Breton describes this twilight scene in which peasants are pulling up thistles and weeds, “their faces haloed by the pink transparency of their violet hoods, as if to venerate a fertilizing star,” noting that he had discovered this subject in the form of a “finished painting” near his native village, Courrières, in northern France. This composition is a study for one of the central figures in Jules Breton’s masterpiece. Oil on canvas, signed and dated “1860” lower left, 10.2 x 12.5 in, with frame: 16.1 x 18.5 in