At TEFAF Maastricht, the Van Gogh Museum acquires a painting by Virginie Demont-Breton People belong to the seaAccording to reports, the 1887-88 painting is now regarded as the third painting of a woman in the institution’s collection Art Network News.
Senior editor Kate Brown reports that the Amsterdam museum purchased the painting for between €500,000 and €1 million ($543,000-$1.1 million) using public funds earmarked for acquisitions, and shows a woman holding a baby looking longingly — presumably longing for the eponymous man at sea. TEFAF’s opening-day sale was facilitated by 19C Gallery in Dallas-Fort Worth, where the work had been in a private collection for 20 years.
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“Van Gogh saw the painting of Demont-Breton, reproduced in black and white between 1887 and 1889, in a magazine about French Salon painting, and he was so inspired that he copied it,” art network. “This is one of the only paintings by a female artist that he imitated.”
Of the work, Lisa Smit, curator of paintings at the Van Gogh Museum, said: “Van Gogh was a big fan of the work of de Mont-Breton’s father, Jules Breton. He would have seen a lot of emotion in this work. It’s visceral, it’s real. You can feel the figure immediately. It’s a depiction of motherhood, but it’s not idyllic.”
Demont-BrittanyPeople belong to the sea It was previously sold at Christie’s in 2000 for $99,500. “While her subject matter ranged from religious works to genre scenes and landscapes, she was particularly drawn to heartfelt depictions of domestic life,” Christie’s wrote in an article accompanying the lot at the time.
