Adam's IMPORTANT IRISH ART 29 MAY 2024

35 ton costumes and the green canopy in sunlight attract our attention. In the foreground a young girl and woman are seated behind a colourful array of vege- tables, waiting for customers. The cheer- ful rosy-cheeked child contrasts with the elderly woman, whose headdress casts a shadow on her face. The woman at the stall with white bonnet and collar, faded garments and shopping basket, viewed from behind, is an archetypical Breton figure by Osborne. To her right is a boy in dark Breton hat, face in profile, and smock. Behind them the market woman stands under the green sunlit canopy; al- though in shadow, her face has a smiling Oriental calmness. The edge of another stall can be seen to the left, perhaps with another stall-holder present. Early Morning in the Markets, Quimper- lé is set in front of the east door of the church of Ste-Croix. It is a fine example of Osborne’s early Realism. He applies loving detail to every part of the picture – not just to the figures, but to the fresh- ly picked vegetables arranged along the pavement, the wickerwork baskets, earthenware jar and weighing scales, cobblestones and weathered stone and woodwork of the church, even to a few scattered cabbage leaves. The textured brushwork and variety of delicate col- ours: blues, beige, white, pinks, greens, russets and ochres, bring the surface of the canvas alive. Yet, together with the meticulous Realism, a narrative element is present: the theme of youth and age, the ‘conversating piece’ between the woman at the stall and the youth looking on and reaching out his arm. The differ- ence in postures suggest that Osborne may have based his figures on prelimi- nary pencil drawings, then assembled them together in the painting. (4) 1. Emmanuelle Yhuel-Bertin, Quimperlé en Images , Quimperlé 2008, p.13 2. Quimperlé en Images , 2008, p.17 3. see: Michel Colardelle, Denise Delouche et al, La Route des Peintres en Cornouaille , Briec-de-L’Odet, 1997; C. Puget and J. Campbell, Peintres Irlandais en Bretagne , Musée de Pont-Aven, 1999; C. Puget and J. Campbell, Peintres Britanniques en Bretagne , Musée de Pont- Aven, 2004; and Andre Carion and Beatrice Rion, Les Peintres de Quimperlé , 1850 – 1950, 2004 4. Similar Breton women and a boy are featured in, for example, Osborne’s Pont-Aven painting, Driving a Bargain , (sold in these rooms, May 2002), and in a small sketch, (Osborne’s sketchbook, NGI, cat.no.19,201, p.21 Osborne rarely identified the location of his pictures, so the fact that he inscribed the name of ‘Quimperlé’ on both Early Morning in the Markets, Quimperlé and Apple Gathering, Quimperlé indicates the importance which he attached to these paintings. Early Morn- ing in the Markets, Quimperlé was exhibited at the RHA in 1884 and has remained in the same Co Dublin family collection since, or almost since, the artist’s lifetime. Dr. Julian Campbell, April 2024 Walter Frederick Osborne RHA Driving a Bargain, 1883 Sold these rooms €740,000