Eugene Feyen (1815-1908) Drawing "breton Woman And Child"

Pencil drawing by Eugène Feyen, signed lower right. Dimensions 28x20cm visible and 43x35cm with the frame. Probably a project for a larger painting. Eugène Feyen trained at the École des Beaux-Arts in Paris in the studio of Paul Delaroche, then with Leon Cogniet. After practicing photography with his brother, he returned to painting. He exhibited at the Salon from 1841 to 1882, where he received medals in 1866 and 1880. He was awarded the Legion of Honor in 1881. His naturalist paintings are appreciated in France and abroad. His copy of the Mona Lisa temporarily replaced the work stolen in 1913 from the Louvre Museum in Paris. Particularly attracted by the charm and colors of Brittany, the artist settled in Cancale, during the summer months, with his brother. As a result, from 1861 onwards, Breton subjects and especially the bay of Mont St Michel on the Brittany side, occupied a large part of his artistic production: at the heart of his paintings were scenes of rural life, the work of fishermen, carrying their nets, as well as figures of women on the beach, busy collecting shells. He also endeavored to transcribe the work of the fields. The authenticity of this region of France, still spared by the emerging modernity animating the rest of the country, attracted a large number of artists. Painters, such as Feyen, seduced by this raw charm and this land borrowed from a form of nostalgia, then rushed to translate these landscapes and these scenes of popular life.