A Breton Sunday
Eugene Laurent Vail
ca. 1890
Medium
Painting
Classification
Painting
Department
Smithsonian Collection
Museum
Smithsonian American Art Museum
Credit
Smithsonian American Art Museum, Gift of Mary B. Longyear
Accession Number
1917.1.1
Tags
boatbustBrittanywaterChristianity
About this artwork
Eugene Laurent Vail was born in Brittany and returned there to paint after studying in New York City and Paris. He was highly respected by art critics and artists alike for his scenes of everyday life and found inspiration in his native region's people and fishing villages. In A Breton Sunday, a young woman holds a Bible and wears the typical white Breton cap. Behind a fishing boat, rings of smoke dot the hilly shoreline and a church sits atop a hill far in the distance. The flat perspective, da...