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BRETON Emile Adélard
BOIS SACRE
Oil on canvas: 110 x 139.5 cm / 43.3 x 55 ins
Signed and dated '1898' lower left
Painter of landscapes; engraver.
A pupil of his brother Jules, Emile Adélard Breton first showed at the Paris Salon in 1861, later winning medals in the exhibitions of 1866, 1867 and 1868. He was made a Chevalier of the Légion d'Honneur in 1878 and was awarded a gold medal in 1889.
Breton spent his life in his native town, striving to reproduce the melancholy of the vast horizons of the Artois, with its stormy skies and its winter nights.
His landscapes are solidly constructed, painted with a dark palette and a curling brushstroke that details the foreground and leaves the background vague. He brings out a degree of emotion that Vincent Van Gogh described thus when writing about him in December 1882: "He expresses more sensitivity than many other painters, he knows more and his work is of a good quality."
Provenance: Collection Henri Duhem (1860-1941), French painter and writer, Douai.
Courrières (Pas-de-Calais) 1831 - 1902
Amiens - Amsterdam - Brussels - Douai - Lille - London - Mulhouse - The Hague - Valenciennes
E. Bénézit, "Dictionary of Artists", Paris 2006, Vol. 2, p. 1219.