Adam's IMPORTANT IRISH ART 29 MAY 2024

34 Early Morning in the Markets, Quimperlé is an attractive Continental street scene such as Walter Osborne loved to paint. It shows several Breton figures at a small market, with a colourful display of veg- etables, in Quimperlé on a sunny day. After completing his studies in Antwerp in 1883 Osborne headed south west to Brittany to paint ‘en plein air’. He worked in Dinan, Pont Aven and at Quimperlé, of- ten together with fellow former students from Ireland and England. Early Morning in the Markets, Quimperlé, set in the lower part of Quimperlé, is a companion piece to Osborne’s best-known Breton painting Apple Gathering, Quimperlé , 1883, (NGI), set in the upper town, both pictures fea- turing a church, and both being inscribed ‘Quimperlé’. Quimperlé had developed around the confluence of the rivers Elle and Isole, which combined to form the river Laita. The church of Ste-Croix was founded in the 12th century, based on the plan of the Holy Sepulchre of Jerusalem. It was famous for its magnificent apse, and became one of the most important spiritual centres in Brittany.(1) In the upper part of the town, the church of St Michel, Notre Dame de l’Assomption dated from the 13th and 15th centuries. Quimperlé was a peaceful Finistère town, with a wooded river valley, apple orchards and mild climate, narrow streets cutting down to the lower quarter, bridges, and old houses with gardens by the river. The arrival of the railway line in 1862made the townmuchmore accessible to visitors. The establishment of schools in the 1870s and 1880s encouraged the edu- cation of local girls and boys. (2) Although less well-known as an artist’s colony than Pont-Aven and Concarneau, Quimperlé had a thriving community of British and Irish painters there from the 1880s to the early 20th century, notably Stanhope Forbes, Henry La Thangue, George Clausen, Osborne, J.M.Kavanagh, Blandford Fletcher, Charlotte Benson and Norman Garstin, as well as Norwegian Fritz Thalow.(3) Forbes had moved to tran- quil Quimperlé because Pont-Aven and Concarneau had become too crowded, and because studios were cheap. It is possible that Osborne may have done so for the same reasons. Early Morning in the Markets, Quimperlé features several figures: a girl and elderly woman, a boy, a woman shopping and a stall holder. The cheerful whites and blues of the Bre- e Walter Frederick Osborne RHA Apple Gathering, Quimperlé, 1883 National Gallery of Ireland Collection (NGI.1052) Image courtesy National Gallery of Ireland