Le ballon

Le Ballon - Julien Dupre

Dupré’s large Salon painting, The Balloon, takes the subject of hot air balloon flight as the focal point of his narrative. Although not a typical theme in French painting, the subject was nevertheless popular in the nineteenth century. France was home to the inventors of the hot air balloon, Joseph-Michel Montgolfier (1740-1810) and Jacques-Étienne Montgolfier…

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Le troupeau d’oies

Children Feeding Geese - Julien Dupre

Children Feeding Geese is listed as Le troupe d’oies (A Flock of Geese) in Dupré’s account book (no. #32) in 1881. When he sold it to Michel Knoedler that same year, the art dealer listed it as Gardeuse d’oies (Goose Girl) in his stock book.¹ As the painting made its way to the United States,…

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Woman with a Wheelbarrow

Woman with a Wheelbarrow - Julien Dupre

The windmill in the background of this scene indicates that it was painted near the Laugée family estate in Nauroy. One of Georges Laugée’s photographs depicts this locale clearly. (fig. 1) The windmill in the background of the photograph has been directly transported into Dupré’s painting of a harvester with her laden wheelbarrow.

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Le repos

Le Repos (formerly titled Le Temps de Moisson) - Julien Dupre

This painting has appeared under several different titles since it was created. In the late twentieth century, it was listed as Le temp de moisson (Harvest Time) in both the Joslyn Art Museum’s 1982 exhibition catalogue, Jules Breton and the French Rural Tradition and in Christie’s International Magazine in 1987. Dupré’s account book, however, lists…

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