Emma Herland (1855 -1947) The Overturned Basket

Emma HERLAND (1855 -1947) The overturned basket

A very sensitive painting by the painter Emma Herland. A scene from Breton daily life, as she liked to depict them, featuring a little girl and her mother.

Oil on canvas
Signed lower left
Dimensions: 55 x 46 cm
With frame: 78 x 70 cm

Beautiful 19th-century channel frame gilded with gold leaf.

Emma Herland, focusing on Breton life.

A woman painter specializing in genre painting, her work is characterized by a focus on Breton life, seascapes, costumes and interiors.

Here, on a country lane, she portrays a little girl crying, consoled by her mother; her basket is tipped over at her feet. The hooves of the two characters give us information about their social origins. In the distance, we see a town and its church steeple.

The theme of childhood is very present in Emma Herland's paintings

There are many children in Emma Herland's paintings, many little girls in beautiful costumes, children with their mothers, assisted children.

Emma Herland is a sensitive painter who possesses the rigor of the academic style.

Emma Herland highlights her artistic qualities, her sensitivity and her mastery of light effects and colors.
Here, we can appreciate the quality and detail of the little girl's costume, as well as the rendering of the lovely sky light.

Biography

Born in Cherbourg (and died in Quimper), Emma Herland spent her career in Brittany's Finistère region, which she discovered when her father, a naval pharmacist, was transferred to Brest.

In 1884, she moved to Concarneau, first to Place de la Mairie, then to Quai d'aiguillon and Villa Kerael on the corniche. Around 1920, she left Concarneau for Quimper, where she bought a house at 13 rue Pen ar Steir. She was one of the town's leading personalities. Since 1914, she has been a member of the museum commission.

She discovered and learned painting from Georges, Alexandre Fischer, Benjamin Constant and Jules Lefebvre during her stay in Paris at the Académie Julian in 1887-1888.

She never missed an opportunity to show her work.

She exhibited regularly at various salons in Brittany, including Brest, Rennes, Nantes, Vannes and Saint Brieuc, as well as in Laval, Angers, Orléans, Versailles and above all Paris, where she made her debut at the Salon des Artistes français in 1879 and continued to do so until 1920. She won several awards.
Ambitious and energetic, she was one of the first female painters to be able to make a living from her work, enabling her to support her sister and four brothers while remaining single.

She died in Quimper in 1947.

Bibliography

• Emma Herland, femme peintre en Bretagne, [catalogue d’exposition], Musée de Pont-Aven, 2009.

 

• Denise Delouche, « Emma Herland, peintre en Bretagne (1855-1947) », in Mémoires de la société d'histoire et d'archéologie de Bretagne. SHAB, Vol. 77, 1999.

Muséums: 

• Quimper,

• Laval, 

• Morlaix, 

• Saint-Brieuc, 

• Château de Vitré.