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Artist: Aloysius C. O'Kelly (1853- c.1941) Title: Breton Church Interior with Figures Signature: signed 'ALOYSIUS O'KELLY' lower right Medium: oil on canvas Size: 91½ x 64cm (36 x 25.2in) Framed Size: 108.6 x 82cm (42.8 x 32.3in) Provenance: Sotheby's, London, 9th May 2007, lot 26; These Rooms, 14th September 2020 lot 24; Private Collection a#morebtn { color: #de1d01; } a#morebtn:hover { cursor: pointer;} Within the darkened interior of a church, beneath a Gothic arch, a man and a woman, dressed in traditional Breton clothing, have come to worship. The woman is on her knees, hands joined in prayer, while the man, hat in hand, stands alongside. Beyond is the altar, with an ornate stained glass Gothic ... Read more Aloysius C. O'Kelly Lot 73 - 'Breton Church Interior with Figures' Estimate: €10,000 - €15,000 Within the darkened interior of a church, beneath a Gothic arch, a man and a woman, dressed in traditional Breton clothing, have come to worship. The woman is on her knees, hands joined in prayer, while the man, hat in hand, stands alongside. Beyond is the altar, with an ornate stained glass Gothic window. The centre light of the window, with its decorative geometric glass panels, is flanked by panels depicting saints. High on the wall, above the couple, is a carved and painted statue. Dr. Niamh O'Sullivan has established that this painting is a study for O'Kelly's 1905 painting Inside the Chapel, exhibited in New York shortly after its completion, and more recently, in 1994, at the Cynthia O'Connor Gallery in Dublin, and at the Hugh Lane Gallery. Dr. O'Sullivan suggests that the more finished work was originally titled Devotion, and shown at the New York Watercolor Club (no. 3) in 1906, and the Corcoran Biennial, Washington (no. 178) in 1907. The present work was intended by O'Kelly as a preliminary study for the larger, more finished canvas, but is also a fine painting in its own right. The setting is the pilgrimage church of Chapelle Locmaria-en-hent, in the commune de Saint Ivi, not far from Concarneau, the fishing port in Brittany to which O'Kelly travelled in 1876. Dedicated to the Virgin Mary, the sixteenth-century church is famous for its carved effigies of saints, among them John the Baptist, Symphorien and Isidore. The sculpture on the wall, visible in the present painting, represents St. Roch. The stained glass seen in the painting has been replaced by modern stained glass, and the altar rails have been removed, but otherwise the interior has changed very little since O'Kelly's time. He evidently loved Chapelle Locmaria, and what it represented, and over the course of two decades, completed several paintings depicting the interior. One of these, Interior of a Church in Brittany is in the National Gallery of Ireland. Another, a version closer to the present work and titled Brittany, the stained glass window, sold at Christies in May 2007. Born in Dublin, Aloysius O'Kelly was the brother of Fenian activist James J. O'Kelly, MP for Roscommon and close friend of Parnell. His other brothers Charles, Stephen, and his sister Julia, were also active in the Fenian movement. The O'Kelly family was also keenly involved in the art world. In 1861, O'Kelly emigrated to London, before moving to Paris, where in 1874 he studied under Jean-Léon Gérome at the École des Beaux-Arts. He also studied with Léon Bonnat, and began making painting trips to Brittany, where among his paintings were views of religious ceremonies, processions and church scenes. Returning to Ireland in 1880, as an artist working for the Illustrated London News, he documented events in the Land War, and also painted in Connemara. His most famous painting, Mass in a Connemara Cabin, painted in 1883, was exhibited at the Paris Salon, at the RA and the RHA, and is now in the National Gallery of Ireland. In Paris he nurtured connections with the Communards. By the mid-1880's O'Kelly was in Cairo; he then travelled to Sudan, to document the war with the Mahdi. During