Beschreibung:

Walter Frederick Osborne RHA (1859 - 1903) A Sunny Morning in the Fields, Pont Aven Oil on Panel 21.5 x 31.5 cm (8.25 x 12.3'') Signed and dated 1883 Provenance : Collection of Francis X Murray (Solicitor), Verbena, Lower Drumcondra road, Dublin and thence by descent. After studying at the Acad?mie Royale, Antwerp from 1881-1883, Walter Osborne spent much of 1883 in Brittany: at Dinan in Spring, Pont Aven in Summer and Quimperl? in Autumn. He painted a large number of genre scenes and landscapes. Best known for his realistic pictures of villages, street scenes and orchards, featuring Breton women and children feeding geese in courtyards, fetching water or shopping in the market, as for instance in Driving a Bargain, 1883 (Adam's, 29 May 2002, lot 23) or picking apples, as in Apple Gathering, Quimperl?, 1883 (NGI), Osborne also painted small Breton landscapes and farmyard scenes without figures. The present picture A Sunny Morning in the Fields, Pont Aven, painted in 1883, belongs to this group. Pont Aven was a beautiful village, set in a wooded river valley. It was at the height of its popularity as an artists' colony, and full of painters in summer. But Osborne's picture is set behind the village, or at a neighbouring farm, and shows a slate-roofed cottage, and a meadow with two slender trees. Although simple in subject, pigeons can be seen fluttering above a dovecote on the roof of the low farmhouse, three geese walk on a diagonal track across the field, and the two wiry apple trees appear to lean towards one another. A Sunny Morning in the Fields, Pont Aven, is executed in Osborne's crisp, assured manner, as can be seen in the painting of the trees and foliage, and the harmonious palette - greens, blue-greys and ochres, and a pale blue sky, giving the impression of a calm , sunny day. In areas of the picture, for instance in the foliage of the trees and in the meadow, Osborne applies small dabs of paint, almost in a simple 'pointilliste' manner. The pale wood of the panel provides a warm underlying tone. The simple composition with cottages and trees is not dissimiliar to orchard scenes painted at Pont Aven by American artist Arthur Wesley Dow in 1888, for example, Au Soir (Ipswich School Committee, Mass., USA). Osborne was a Naturalistic painter, dedicated to the representation of the observable world, and not a Symboliste. Nevertheless, in Driving a Bargain as in A Sunny Morning in the Fields, Pont Aven, he features geese walking towards the foreground. In his Breton landscapes without figures he includes birds, animals or domestic implements to hint at the presence of human life nearby. In A Sunny Morning in the Fields, Pont Aven, there are pigeons and geese. In A Stream in a Wood, 1883 (Dublin City Gallery, The Hugh Lane) a wooden box rests on the pathway. In the small painting of a Breton (or Flemish) Homestead (deVere's 25 Nov.2003, lot 50), Osborne depicts a thatched dwelling with open door, two green shutters hanging on a hook, a pair of clogs and a jug. In The Pump (Gorry Gallery, Dec 1995, No. 2), Osborne features a rustic village pump, a half door, a pair of clogs and two bowls, one green, one terracotta, on the ground. In The Intruder, 1883 (Christie's, 21 May 1997, lot 150) Osborne represents a farmhouse with slated roof, an open door, three hens, a black cat, a dovecote, and again two bowls, one green, one russet, on the ground. Being the son of Animal painter William Osborne (1823-1901), who often provided encounters between dogs in his pictures, Osborne sometimes sets up a gentle or humourous narrative suggestive of farmyard life, and human presence nearby. A Sunny Morning in the Fields, Pont Aven, is painted on a small wooden panel, and signed and dated 'F.W.Osborne'83', characteristic of his early work, in which he placed the initial of his second name 'Frederick' before that of the 'W'. The title A Sunny Morning in the Fields, Pont Aven, is inscribed in pencil on the reverse of the panel, one of the few