Description
Houses in Le Pouldu – the museum publishes the frame’s measurement too
Bare trunks and branches rise across the whole upright canvas, cutting the scene into vertical bands. Behind them stands a long low house with a blue-grey slate roof and a brick-red wall, from which two chimneys and a small dark barred window project. On the left in front a strongly green bank rises, and below it red-brown earth opens. At the centre of the canvas stands a figure in a yellow hat and blue jacket. On the right a woman in a blue apron and dark coif bends down, and behind her stands a black horse. At the lower right is a yellow wooden fence. The sky is pale grey. The work is held by the Staatliche Kunsthalle Karlsruhe under inventory number 2503; it was made in 1890.
The canvas measures 92 x 73 cm, the frame 116.5 x 99 cm
The museum record gives two different measurements for this work: the support, that is the canvas alone, measures 92 x 73 cm, while the frame measures 116.5 x 99 cm at a depth of 11 cm. The frame therefore adds almost 25 cm of height and 26 cm of width. The figure is rare and very useful: when you choose a size for a particular wall you are not measuring the painting alone but the painting with its frame. The same relation holds for our sizes, so it is worth adding a few tens of cm to the chosen measurement in both directions.
What the museum says about the picture
The museum’s text points out that the usual grading of the picture planes is missing here: the distance is almost suppressed, and foreground and middle ground weave into a network of lines made of trees, roofs and figures. The colours close into large areas bounded by a line, and the painter modelled those areas with short, parallel brushstrokes. The work was made after he moved with the colleagues of the Pont-Aven circle to the Breton fishing village of Le Pouldu.
Where the picture hangs today
The museum also gives the location for this work: the Kunsthalle’s collection presentation at the ZKM. It has been shown in that arrangement from 2023 onwards. Its digital reproduction has been published by the museum as public domain.
How a hand-painted reproduction is made
Every reproduction here is hand-painted in oil on canvas, stroke by stroke. In this motif the bare trunks are decisive: they must be painted in one pass and with slightly varying thickness, or the network of lines turns into a fence. Before dispatch you receive a photograph of the finished work for approval.
- Subject: Breton houses behind bare trees, with three figures and a horse.
- Technique: oil on canvas, a red wall and blue-grey roof behind a green bank.
- Sizes: portrait format, from 40 x 50 cm to 160 x 200 cm; 87 x 110 cm and 110 x 140 cm are often chosen.
- Of note: the museum publishes the frame’s measurement, not only the canvas’s.
If the same period interests you, see also Breton Boy, Winter Landscape (Vinterlandskap) and The Green Christ. The museum record gives the measurement as height by width: 92 x 73 cm.
