[Young Woman with Rake]
Edwin Austin Abbey American
Not on view
Philadelphia-born Abbey specialized in literary subjects throughout his long and successful career, which began with black-and-white drawing and ended with mural painting. The artist first went to England in the late 1870s to fulfill commissions for illustrations, and settled there permanently in 1883. This spirited depiction of a laborer lounging with a long rake in a spare, yet expressive landscape is a departure from Abbey’s Anglo-American work. It may have been inspired by his occasional travels to France, as suggested by the rustic style of dress and the crucifix shrine, thus aligning it with popular paintings of peasants by French artists such as Jules Breton and Jules Bastien-Lepage.
