Signed, dated, and inscribed (lower right): Jules Breton / Courrières 1868
This is a smaller variant of Breton's painting "The Weeders" of 1860 (Joslyn Art Museum, Omaha, Nebraska), which was widely admired at the Salon of 1861 and the 1867 Exposition Universelle in Paris. Breton wrote in his autobiography that one evening in the fields near his native village of Courrières in northern France he had come across this twilight scene of peasants pulling up "thistles and weeds . . . their faces haloed by the pink transparency of their violet hoods, as if to venerate a fecundating star." It had presented itself to him as a "finished picture," completed even as far as "the breadth of the lines, intensity of the effect, character, richness and simplicity."
Henry Probasco, Cincinnati (until 1887; his sale, American Art Association, New York, April 18, 1887, no. 96, as "The Colza Gatherers, Effect of Sunset with New Moon," for $16,600); S. A. Coale, Jr., St. Louis (from 1887); Collis P. Huntington, New York (by 1891–d. 1900; life interest to his widow, Arabella D. Huntington, later [from 1913] Mrs. Henry E. Huntington, 1900–d. 1924; life interest to their son, Archer Milton Huntington, 1924–terminated in 1925)
Chicago World's Fair of 1893. "World's Columbian Exhibition: Fine Arts," May 1–October 26, 1893, no. 2876 (as "Colza-gatherers," lent by Collis P. Huntington, New York).
Winnipeg Art Gallery. "French Pre-Impressionist Painters of the Nineteenth Century," April 10–May 9, 1954, no. 69 (as "Pulse Gatherers").
New York. The Metropolitan Museum of Art. "Van Gogh as Critic and Self-Critic," October 30, 1973–January 6, 1974, no. 30.
New York. The Metropolitan Museum of Art. "Impressionism: A Centenary Exhibition," December 12, 1974–February 10, 1975, not in catalogue.
Musée d'Arras. "Jules et Emile Breton, peintres de l'Artois," October 16, 1976–January 10, 1977, no catalogue.
Minneapolis Institute of Arts. "Millet's Gleaners," April 2–June 4, 1978, no. 22.
Hamburger Kunsthalle. "Courbet und Deutschland," October 19–December 17, 1978, no. 477.
Frankfurt am Main. Städtische Galerie im Städelschen Kunstinstitut. "Courbet und Deutschland," January 17–March 18, 1979, no. 477.
Omaha. Joslyn Art Museum. "Jules Breton and the French Rural Tradition," November 6, 1982–January 2, 1983, no. 14 (as "The Weeders [Les Sarcleuses]").
Memphis, Tenn. Dixon Gallery and Gardens. "Jules Breton and the French Rural Tradition," January 16–March 6, 1983, no. 14 (as "The Weeders [Les Sarcleuses]").
Williamstown. Sterling and Francine Clark Institute. "Jules Breton and the French Rural Tradition," April 2–June 5, 1983, no. 14 (as "The Weeders [Les Sarcleuses]").
Amsterdam. Rijksmuseum Vincent Van Gogh. "Franse meesters uit het Metropolitan Museum of Art: Realisten en Impressionisten," March 15–May 31, 1987, no. 7.
Fort Lauderdale. Museum of Art. "Corot to Cézanne: 19th Century French Paintings from The Metropolitan Museum of Art," December 22, 1992–April 11, 1993, no catalogue.
Museum of Fine Arts, Houston. "The Masterpieces of French Painting from The Metropolitan Museum of Art: 1800–1920," February 4–May 6, 2007, no. 48.
Berlin. Neue Nationalgalerie. "Französische Meisterwerke des 19.Jahrhunderts aus dem Metropolitan Museum of Art, New York," June 1–October 7, 2007, unnumbered cat.
Robert Jarvis. "Sketching from Nature." Art Amateur (July 1886), p. 30, fig. 6 (print).
"The Probasco Collection." Art Amateur (May 1887), p. 124.
"The Sale of the Probasco Collection of Paintings." Art Amateur (June 1887), p. 25.
"Mr. Probasco's Paintings." New York Times (April 11, 1887), p. 5.
"The Probasco Paintings: Not Bringing as Much as Was Expected." New York Times (April 19, 1887), p. 5.
Walter Rowlands. "Art Sales in America." Art Journal, n.s., (1887), p. 295.
Jules Breton. The Life of an Artist: Art and Nature. New York, 1891, ill. opp. p. 244.
Charles Sterling and Margaretta M. Salinger. "XIX Century." French Paintings: A Catalogue of the Collection of The Metropolitan Museum of Art. 2, New York, 1966, pp. 180–81, ill.
Albert Boime. The Academy and French Painting in the Nineteenth Century. London, 1971, p. 107, fig. 73.
Carl R. Baldwin. "The Salon of '72." Art News 71 (May 1972), p. 20, ill.
Jean Bouret. L'École de Barbizon et le paysage français au XIXe siècle. Neuchâtel, Switzerland, 1972, p. 265, ill. p. 248.
Gregory Hedberg in Millet's Gleaners. Exh. cat., Minneapolis Institute of Arts. Minneapolis, 1978, pp. 9, 11–12 n. 4, p. 46, no. 22, fig. 1.
Madeleine Fidell Beaufort. "'Fire in a Haystack' by Jules Breton." Bulletin of the Detroit Institute of Arts 57, no. 2 (1979), p. 61, fig. 8.
Annette Bourrut-Lacouture in Hollister Sturges. Jules Breton and the French Rural Tradition. Exh. cat., Joslyn Art Museum. Omaha, 1982, pp. 30, 42.
Candace Clements in Hollister Sturges. Jules Breton and the French Rural Tradition. Exh. cat., Joslyn Art Museum. Omaha, 1982, pp. 74–76, 96, 135, no. 14, ill.
Madeleine Fidell-Beaufort in Hollister Sturges. Jules Breton and the French Rural Tradition. Exh. cat., Joslyn Art Museum. Omaha, 1982, pp. 56, 61 n. 45.
Sjraar van Heutgen et al. in Franse meesters uit het Metropolitan Museum of Art: Realisten en Impressionisten. Exh. cat., Rijksmuseum Vincent van Gogh, Amsterdam. Zwolle, The Netherlands, 1987, pp. 10, 17–18, 40–41, no. 7, ill. (black and white and color).
Roger Hurlburt. "Free Spirits." Sun-Sentinel (Fort Lauderdale) (December 20, 1992), p. 4D.
Albert Boime. The Art of the Macchia and the Risorgimento: Representing Culture and Nationalism in Nineteenth-Century Italy. Chicago, 1993, p. 110, fig. 3.21.
Linda Nochlin. Courbet. New York, 2007, p. 215 n. 30.
Susan Alyson Stein in Masterpieces of European Painting, 1800–1920, in The Metropolitan Museum of Art. New York, 2007, pp. 81, 216, no. 75, ill. (color and bw).
Susan Alyson Stein in The Masterpieces of French Painting from The Metropolitan Museum of Art: 1800–1920. Exh. cat., Museum of Fine Arts, Houston. New York, 2007, pp. 72, 183, no. 48, ill. (color and bw).
Maite van Dijk in Van Gogh and the Colours of the Night. Exh. cat., Museum of Modern Art. New York, 2008, pp. 113, 153, fig. 77 (color).
Chris Stolwijk in Van Gogh and the Colours of the Night. Exh. cat., Museum of Modern Art. New York, 2008, p. 26.
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