Beautiful example of painting by a painter who did not strictly belong to the Faouet school and who chose a less classical view than other painters who more commonly painted the Saint Fiacre and Sainte Barbe chapels or the superb covered markets. Uncleaned and original frame with key with small accidents, the canvas measures 41cm x 33cm.
Delivery possible by MBE Vannes for:
France €60
Europe €85
Others €150
*Gabriel Guay or Julien Gabriel Guay, born October 15, 1848 in La Chapelle (commune attached to Paris in 1859) and died September 15, 1923 in Saint-Leu-la-Forêt.
A pupil of Jean-Léon Gérôme and Justin Lequien père, Guay exhibited his works at the Paris Salon from 1873 onwards, winning a second-class medal in 1889, and the silver medal at the Paris World's Fairs in 1889, where he exhibited The Death of Jezebel, which was noticed by the writer Thomas Hardy (the work was destroyed in Brest in 1941).
His circle of friends included the artists Édouard Debat-Ponsan, Edmond Debon, Adrien Demont, Virginie Demont-Breton, Octave Jahyer, Henri Pille, Tony Robert-Fleury, and François Thévenot, and the painter Edmond Yon.
While Guay's submissions to the Salon followed the rigorous standards of academic art and were sometimes quite voluminous, he also painted a series of smaller works depicting rustic villages and farms in places such as Brittany and the Vosges mountains in France.
Often executed in oil on panel, likely painted en plein air, these display looser, almost impressionistic brushwork, and may have been made as studies, souvenirs, and gifts. They are signed but undated, making them difficult to situate in the chronology of Guay's career.