Young Breton Woman

1892

Not on view

With its bold blue outlines and simplified fields of color, this monotype—one of only two the artist produced—represents the Synthetist style Emile Bernard developed in collaboration with Paul Gauguin during the summer of 1888. For Bernard, it evolved out of "Cloisonnisme," an aesthetic that drew upon various sources, including stained glass, with its lead border lines framing flat planes of color, as well as Japanese woodblock prints and popular Epinal woodcuts. The rural life and religious rituals of Brittany in northwest France furnished subject matter filled with spiritual symbolism, suggested here by the presence of the white lily, associated with the Virgin Mary in the Catholic tradition.

Artwork Details

Object Information

Overview

Signatures, Inscriptions, and Markings

Provenance

Title: Young Breton Woman
Artist: Emile Bernard (French, Lille 1868–1941 Paris)
Date: 1892
Medium: Color monotype with brush and ink
Dimensions: 12 1/8 × 13 7/16 in. (30.8 × 34.1 cm)
Classification: Prints
Credit Line: Purchase, Marjorie Phelps Starr Bequest, 2025
Object Number: 2025.18
Curatorial Department: Drawings and Prints

More Artwork

By Emile Bernard

In the same medium

From the same time and place

Mont Sainte-Victoire, Emile Bernard French, Watercolor on heavy wove paper — Mont Sainte-Victoire
Attributed to Emile Bernard
Former Attribution Formerly attributed to Paul Cézanne
1936

Ceramic Horn, Glazed pottery, French — Ceramic Horn
French
late 18th or early 19th century

Bather Standing Among Grasses at the Shore, Camille Pissarro French, Monotype in brown/black ink on light blue laid paper — Bather Standing Among Grasses at the Shore
Camille Pissarro
ca. 1894

The Little Flowers of St. Francis, Emile Bernard French, Woodcut, black and brown ink — The Little Flowers of St. Francis
Multiple artists/makers
1928

Osage Warrior, Charles Balthazar Julien Févret de Saint-Mémin French, Watercolor and graphite on off-white wove paper, American — Osage Warrior
Charles Balthazar Julien Févret de Saint-Mémin
1805–7

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