FreeThe Weeders
Jules Breton (French, 1827–1906)
Title
The Weeders
Artist
Jules Breton (French, 1827–1906)
Date
1860
Medium
oil on canvas
Dimensions
37 × 66 1/2 in. (94 × 168.9 cm)
Classification
Painting
Credit Line
Museum purchase
Object Number
1984.47
On View
On view
With Galerie Charles Sedelmeyer, Paris, by 1888.
Purchased at Sotheby’s, London, March 1, 1972, lot 92, by a private collector, Mexico City;
Private collection, Mexico City, 1972–1984;
Consigned from a private collection, Mexico City, to Neil Morris Fine Paintings, New York, by June 1984–November 27, 1984;
Purchased from Neil Morris Fine Paintings by Joslyn Art Museum, 1984.
Salon, Paris, no. 426.
International Exhibition, London, 1862, no. 60.
Exposition universelle, Paris, 1867, no. 86.
Exposition universelle, Paris, 1889.
Winslow Homer and the Critics: Forging a National Art in the 1870s, Nelson-Atkins Museum of Art, Kansas City, MO, February 18–May 6, 2001; Los Angeles County Museum of Art, June 10–September 9, 2001; High Museum of Art, Atlanta, October 6, 2001–January 6, 2002.
Jules Breton, La chanson des blés, Musée des beaux-arts, Arras, France, March 16–June 2, 2002; Musée des beaux-arts, Quimper, France, June 15–September 8, 2002; National Gallery of Ireland, Dublin, September 23–December 15, 2002, no. 31.
Titian to Monet: European Paintings from Joslyn Art Museum, Taubman Museum of Art, Roanoke, VA, October 14, 2022–January 8, 2023; Rembrandt to Monet: 500 Years of European Painting from Joslyn Art Museum, Philbrook Museum of Art, Tulsa, OK, February 22–May 28, 2023.
Théodore de Banville, “Le Salon de 1861,” Le Revue fantaisiste, July 1, 1861, 293–94.
L. Brés, “Salon de 1861,” Le Moniteur des Arts, June 22, 1861, 2.
Jules-Antoine Castagnary, Les Artistes du XIXe siècle: Salon de 1861 (Paris: Librairie nouvelle, 1861), 59.
Alphonse de Calonne, “La peinture contemporaine à l'exposition de 1861,” Revue contemporaine 56, 1861, 342.
H. Delaborde, “Salon de 1861,” Revue des Deux Mondes 33 (June 1861): 891.
Maxime Du Camp, Le Salon de 1861 (Paris: Librairie nouvelle, 1861), 116–17.
Albert Patin de la Fizelière, A–Z ou le Salon en miniature (Paris: Poulet-Malassis, 1861), 15.
L. Galletti, Salon de 1861, Album Carricatural (Paris, 1861), 36.
Théophile Gautier, “Salon de 1861,” Le Moniteur universelle, May 23, 1861, 718–19.
Théophile Gautier, “Salon de 1861, VI” Le Moniteur universelle, May 25, 1861, 83, 86–87.
Théophile Gautier, Abécédaire du Salon de 1861 (Paris: E. Dentu, 1861), 11, 84–86.
Léon Lagrange, “Le Salon de 1861,” Gazette des beaux-arts, July 1, 1861, 64, 65, (repro.).
Luc-Olivier Merson, Exposition 1861: La peinture en France (Paris: E. Dentu, 1861), 293–94.
Nadar, “Nadar Jury au Salon de 1861,” Le Journal amusant, no. 288, July 6, 1861.
Perrin, “Salon de 1861,” La Revue Européenne 15, 1861, 373.
J. Rousseau, “Salon de 1861,” Le Figaro, May 30, 1861, 3–4.
Claude Vignon, “Une visite au Salon de 1861,” Le Correspondant 53, May 1861, 151.
Luc-Olivier Merson, Paris, “Beaux-Arts–M. Jules Breton,” L’Exposition universelle de 1867 illustrée (Paris, 1867), 186–87.
A. Bonnin, Les écoles françaises et étrangeres en 1867 (Paris: E. Dentu, 1868), 95.
Théophile Thoré, “Salon de 1861,” in Salons de W. Bürger: 1861 à 1868, 2 vols. (Paris: Renouard, 1870), 1: 35–37, 112–14.
Jules Breton, La vie d’un artitse: art et nature (Paris: Alphonse Lemerre, 1890), 244–45.
Jules Breton, trans. Mary J. Serrano, The Life of Art Artist: An Autobiography (New York: D. Appleton, 1890), 252.
Jules Breton, Un peintre paysan: souvenirs et impressions (Paris: Alphonse Lemerre, 1896), 110–11.
Marius Vachon, Jules Breton (Paris: A. Lahure, 1898), 4, 86, 126, (repro.).
Jérome Doucet, Les peintres français (Paris: Félix Juven, 1899), 203.
M. Gabriel-Ferrier, Notice sur la vie et les travaux de M. Jules Breton, lue au cours de la séance du 12 décembre 1910, de l’Académie des Beaux-Arts (Paris, 1910), 9.
Albert Boime, The Academy and French Painting in the Nineteenth Century (London: Phaidon, 1971), 107, (repro.).
Baldwin, Art News 71 (1972): 20, 62, (repro.).
Linda Nochlin, “The Cribleuses de blé: Courbet, Millet, Brenton, Kollwitz, and the Image of the Working Woman,” in Klaus Herding, ed., Materei und Theorie: Das Courbet Colloquium 1979 (Frankurt am Main: Städtische Galerie im Städelschen Kunstinstitut, 1979), 57.
Sylvie Douce de la Salle, Albert Boime, and Patrick Le Nouëne, Exigences de réalisme dans la peinture française entre 1830 et 1870, exh. cat. (Chartres: Musée des beaux-arts, 1984), 150.
Mary Treynor Smith, “Joslyn One-Ups Met with ‘Real’ Breton Masterpiece,” Omaha World-Herald, December 30, 1984, 1, 26, (repro.).
Annette Bourrut Lacouture, “Une source au bord de la mer,” in Denise Delouche, ed. Bretagne, images et mythes (Rennes: Presses Universitaires de Rennes, 1987), 114, 117, 124.
Hollister Sturges, ed., "The Rural Vision: France and America in the Late Nineteenth Century" (Omaha: Joslyn Art Museum, 1987), 24, 33, 34, 77, (repro.).
Holliday T. Day and Hollister Sturges, eds., "Joslyn Art Museum: Paintings & Sculpture from the European & American Collections" (Omaha: Joslyn Art Museum, 1987), 82–85, (repro.).
Margaret C. Conrads, "Winslow Homer and the Critics: Forging a National Art in the 1870s" (Princeton: Princeton University Press, 2001), n.p.
Annette Bourrut-Lacouture, "Jules Breton: Painter of Peasant Life," exh. cat. (New Haven: Yale University Press, 2002), 79, 88, 89, 95, 106, 109, 110, 112, 147, (repro.).
Brandon K. Ruud, "Art Work: Art and Labor" (Lincoln: Sheldon Museum of Art, 2014), 12.
Taylor J. Acosta, "European Paintings and Sculpture from Joslyn Art Museum' (Omaha: Joslyn Art Museum, 2020), 24, 148–51, (repro.).
Annette Bourrut Lacouture, Jules Breton: Catalogue raisonné: Peintures (Paris: Editions du Sandre, 2025) 124, no. 1860-14 (repro.) as Les Sarcleuses (The Weeders).