Joseph-félix Bouchor - Spring At Freneuse - Oil On Canvas

Throughout his life, Joseph-Félix Bouchor had a taste for travel. In Algeria, Morocco, Egypt or Constantinople, he found a source of inspiration for the creation of orientalist works. He also made several trips to Italy, of which he brought back many views. However, in 1886, he decided to settle in the small village of Freneuse, in Normandy, discovered at random by an invitation. For fifteen years, he lived there in the former presbytery, where he established his studio. But it is on the ground that he will look for his subjects, in the heart of Normandy, endeavoring over the seasons to represent the daily activities of his neighbors, in a subtle palette where soft greens and light blues in particular mingle.
His Norman productions brought him success at the Salon, where he exhibited since 1879. In 1888, his painting Le Printemps au Val-Freneuse, Normandie earned him an honorable mention. From the heights of Freneuse, Bouchor painted a young woman hanging out her laundry, in front of the apple trees in blossom, the houses and the church of the village and the Seine below.
With a similar point of view but in a more free and sketchy style, our painting presents a young farmer taking out her poultry, in the raking light and the cloudy sky of a fresh early spring day. It is probably the daughter of his neighbours, Maria Fréret, born in 1878, which leads us to date the work to the end of the 1880s.