The Washerwomen of the Breton Coast

These women are washing clothing in fresh water flowing from the rock at right, where two women are drawing water. A woman with her finished laundry heads back to the village on the path coming down to the beach. It appears to be afternoon with the sun blocked by surrounding hills and the tide is out. The women scrub the clothing using their paddles and soap then twist them dry on spindles. Brittany is on the northern coast of France near the English Channel.

Jules Breton first visited Brittany in 1865; one of many artists and travelers to visit the area where the inhabitants kept to the language, religion and culture of the earlier Celtic settlers. He visited the beaches and observed washerwomen and other peasants at their daily work, creating large canvases like this one. Breton portrays the women in a more realistic and natural manner related to the work they perform rather than the more classical poses. This early form of naturalism failed to win the approval of critics when it was exhibited at the Paris Salon of 1870. It was one of the earliest major works of Breton to be acquired by an American collector; Edwin Denison Morgan, governor of New York and later a United States senator. The painting disappeared after his death and was not seen until it was purchased by the Grohmann Museum.

The Washerwomen of the Breton Coast was recently on loan to the St. Louis Art Museum and the Nelson-Atkins Museum for their Impressionist France exhibition. It was there that we learned that the central figure in The Washerwomen was a local woman with whom Breton was quite enamored and often included her in paintings created in the area.