Sterling and Francine clark art inStitute | WilliamStoWn, massachuSettS NINETEENTH-CENTURY EUROPEAN PAINTINGS diStributed by yale univerSity Press | NeW haven and london AT THE STERLING AND FRANCINE CLARK ART INSTITUTE VOLUME ONE Edited by Sarah Lees With an essay by Richard Rand and technical reports by Sandra L. Webber With contributions by Katharine J. Albert, Philippe Bordes, Dan Cohen, Kathryn Calley Galitz, Alexis Goodin, Marc Gotlieb, John House, Simon Kelly, Richard Kendall, Kathleen M. Morris, Leslie Hill Paisley, Kelly Pask, Elizabeth A. Pergam, Kathryn A. Price, Mark A. Roglán, James Rosenow, Zoë Samels, and Fronia E. Wissman ii iii Nineteenth-Century European Paintings at the Sterling and Library of Congress Cataloging-in-Publication Data Francine Clark Art Institute is published with the assistance of the Getty Foundation and support from the National Sterling and Francine Clark Art Institute. Endowment for the Arts. Nineteenth-century European paintings at the Sterling and Francine Clark Art Institute / edited by Sarah Lees ; with an essay by Richard Rand and technical reports by Sandra L. Webber ; with contributions by Katharine J. Albert, Philippe Bordes, Dan Cohen, Kathryn Calley Galitz, Alexis Goodin, Marc Gotlieb, John House, Simon Kelly, Richard Kendall, Kathleen M. Morris, Leslie Hill Paisley, Kelly Pask, Elizabeth A. Produced by the Sterling and Francine Clark Art Institute Pergam, Kathryn A. Price, Mark A. Roglán, James Rosenow, 225 South Street, Williamstown, Massachusetts 01267 Zoë Samels, Fronia E. Wissman. www.clarkart.edu volumes cm Includes bibliographical references and index. Curtis R. Scott, Director of Publications ISBN 978-1-935998-09-9 (clark hardcover : alk. paper) — and Information Resources ISBN 978-0-300-17965-1 (yale hardcover : alk. paper) Dan Cohen, Special Projects Editor 1. Painting, European—19th century—Catalogs. 2. Painting— Katherine Pasco Frisina, Production Editor Massachusetts—Williamstown—Catalogs. 3. Sterling and Anne Roecklein, Managing Editor Francine Clark Art Institute—Catalogs. I. Lees, Sarah, editor Michael Agee, Photographer of compilation. II. Rand, Richard. III. Webber, Sandra L. IV. Title. Laurie Glover, Visual Resources V. Title: 19th-century European paintings at the Sterling and Julie Walsh, Program Assistant Francine Clark Art Institute. Mari Yoko Hara and Michelle Noyer-Granacki, ND457.S74 2012 Publications Interns 759.9409'0340747441—dc23 2012030510 Designed by Susan Marsh Composed in Meta by Matt Mayerchak Copyedited by Sharon Herson Details: Bibliography edited by Sophia Wagner-Serrano title page: John Constable, Yarmouth Jetty (cat. 73) Index by Kathleen M. Friello opposite copyright page: Jean-Baptiste-Camille Corot, Proofread by June Cuff ner Bathers of the Borromean Isles (cat. 89) Production by The Production Department, page viii: Pierre-Auguste Renoir, Woman Crocheting (cat. 267) Whately, Massachusetts page x: Claude Monet, Seascape, Storm (cat. 222) Printed on 135 gsm Gardapat Kiara page xii: Jacques-Louis David, Comte Henri-Amédée-Mercure Color separations and printing by Trifolio, Verona de Turenne-d’Aynac (cat. 103) page xvi: William-Adolphe Bouguereau, Nymphs and Satyr © 2012 Sterling and Francine Clark Art Institute (cat. 33) All rights reserved. preceding page 2: Jean-Léon Gérôme, Snake Charmer (cat. 154) This book may not be reproduced, in whole or in part, including illustrations, in any form (beyond that copying permitted by Sections 107 and 108 of the U.S. Copyright Law and except by reviewers for the public press), without written permission from the publishers. Distributed by Yale University Press, New Haven and London P. O. Box 209040, New Haven, Connecticut 06520-9040 www.yalebooks.com/art Printed and bound in Italy 10 9 8 7 6 5 4 3 2 1 Cyprien-Eugène Boulet canvas based on either style or costume, circumstan- Jules Breton tial evidence indicates that it was likely painted in the French, 1827–1906 1930s.4 KP Provenance [Wildenstein, New York, sold to Clark, 14 June 36 | Jeanne Calvet 1865 1940]; Robert Sterling Clark (1940–55 ); Sterling and Francine Clark Art Institute, 1955. Oil on millboard, 22 x 19 cm Lower right: Jules Breton / Jeanne Calvet / Douarnenez / exhibitions New York 1940c, p. 17, no. 6, ill., as A Parisian. Sardinière; upper right: 1865 references None 1955.661 technical rePort The support is a good quality, coarsely Jules Breton is well known for his depictions of French woven, pre-primed linen (13 threads/cm). The painting rural life, which he loved and from which he origi- is unlined and is sparsely tacked to an inexpensive, five- nated. He was born to a bourgeois family in a small member pine strainer, with nailed, half-lapped corner joins. town in the province of Artois in the far north of France, The canvas is held properly taut, despite the immobility of and throughout his life, was continually drawn to the the strainer. There is minor frame abrasion along the left and right edges. There are no cracks except those along the fold- simplicity of country living. Most of his early train- over edges. The surface sheen is primarily matte, except in ing was in Ghent, with the Belgian painter Félix de areas of locally applied varnish. The coating is a thin, patchy Vigne (1806–1863 ), whose daughter Breton eventu- layer, apparently applied while the picture was framed. ally married. After a brief period of study in Antwerp, The ground is a commercially applied off-white layer, thin Breton moved to Paris in 1847 to further his training, enough to allow the canvas weave to be prominent. There is first with Michel-Martin Drölling (1786–1851). Soon no detectable underdrawing or paint sketch below the visible thereafter he entered the École des Beaux-Arts where paint layer, although there may be a grayish layer below the he counted Ary Scheffer, Horace Vernet, and Jean- flesh color. The paint was directly and quickly applied in a paste consistency, wet-into-wet, using large brushes. Wide- Auguste-Dominique Ingres as his teachers. His natural bristle brushstrokes are visible even in the face. inclinations, together with the democratic tendencies brought out by the Revolution of 1848, strengthened his resolve to focus on depicting the nobility of rural 1. RSC diary, 12 May 1940, pp. 2–3. life. Unlike the slightly older Jean-François Millet (cats. 2. Most sources still give his year of death as 1927 rather 217–21), whose subjects he emulated, Breton rarely than 1972, but this seems to stem from a typographi- showed the struggles of country life, but instead cal error in some editions of Emmanuel Bénézit’s Dic- sought to highlight its dignity. tionnaire des peintures, sculpteurs, dessinateurs et In this austere little portrait, a young woman graveurs, including the French edition of 1999. This was corrected in the English edition of 2006. Boulet exhibited is shown in strict profile against a plain dark green regularly at the Paris Salons, even as late as 1951, when background. The woman is clothed in a simple brown he showed two paintings and a pastel there. blouse with a turquoise fichu at the neck, with her hair 3. New York 1947. A painting titled Parisienne was exhibited covered by a white headdress. She gazes forward, her there, but it is unlikely to be the Clark’s picture. light gray eyes focused on the distance in an expres- 4. The date may be inferred from the fact that the exhibition sion of silent concentration. She seems serious and at which it appeared in 1940 was devoted to contempo- strong, with a simple grandeur despite her apparent rary French painting. rusticity. The sitter’s straight nose and prominent chin and lips appealed to the artist, who referred to this type of woman as “a Gallo-Roman type, dear to Michael Angelo.” 1 Indeed, the strong features of the woman coupled with the profile format bring to mind not only Michelangelo, but also figures on ancient coins or Renaissance plaquettes. From the artist’s inscription on the lower right of the painting, we know that the woman is Jeanne Cal- vet from the town of Douarnenez, and that she was 86 36 a sardine processor, or sardinière. Douarnenez is a who inhabited the town, and his desire to have the lat- rugged coastal town with Celtic roots in the province ter pose for him.4 He and his family became frequent of Brittany, where the economy centered on the fish- summer visitors to the town, where they roomed in ing and canning of sardines, tuna, and mackerel.2 The a comfortable hotel with a variety of artists and writ- sardine industry employed both fishermen, who set ers. The initial voyage of 1865 was followed by a short up nets in the bay, then brought the fish in from the hiatus from Brittany in the following two years, then boats to the docks, and women, who processed the return trips there each year from 1868 through 1874. fish once on land. In a laborious and seemingly end- In Douarnenez, Breton sketched and painted pro- less chain of events, the women of Douarnenez were digiously, making some plein-air studies that were fin- responsible for the sorting, cleaning, brining, drying, ished on the spot, and others that were later worked cooking, canning, and ultimately the packing of sar- up back in his Parisian studio. He also visited the local dines during the busy harvesting season each sum- women at work along the docks or in the fish-processing mer and autumn. buildings, or at the public laundry areas along the rocky Jules Breton first traveled to Douarnenez, together shore of the bay. Breton must have made the acquain- with his wife and young daughter, in late August tance of Jeanne Calvet fairly soon after his arrival, for 1865 to visit a friend.3 The details of this initial trip in mid-October he wrote to his uncle about her posing are recorded in a series of letters to his uncle, and for him: “I began a study of a charming young model; I in one of the first he recounted the beauty of both shall finish that and make a small painting of it.” 5 The the bay crowded with fishing boats and the women portrait, painted on millboard, is the second work men- 87 Jules Breton tioned and seems to have been made fairly quickly and painted a dark brown in imitation of oxidized wood.