Beschreibung:

William John Hennessy (1839-1917) Breton Girl Returning from the Well Oil on canvas, 122 x 61cm (48 x 24 '') Pendant labels verso Provenance: G. and C. Sadde, Dijon, France Hennessy was born in Thomastown, Co. Kilkenny on the 11th July 1839. His father fled his homeland following his involvement with the Young Ireland movement in 1848; he landed in Canada and moved to New York soon afterwards where his wife and two sons joined him the following year. Unlike the rest of his Irish contemporaries, Hennessy received his training in New York, and although he established a sound career there, he moved to London in 1870. He was equally successful there, and could afford to spend the summer months in Normandy where he had a residence close to the port of Honfleur. A school of painting, based in Saint Sim?on's Inn, was already well established there. Corot, Isabey and Huet were amongst the first painters of the group. Courbet, Jongkind and Monet were invited to join them by Boudin. As a native and well established painter, Boudin was looked upon as a father figure. He encouraged Monet to paint in the open air, an activity that led to the advent of Impressionism. Hennessy might have had this in mind when he painted An Impressionist at Work; Scene in a Normandy Cider Orchard, which he sent to the Royal Academy in 1881. Another important painting, Gathering Apples, Normandy, painted in 1884, was exhibited by Milmo-Penny Fine Art in 2006. Due to his American training, Hennessy was not included in Julian Campbell's 'Irish Impressionists' catalogue of 1984, which concentrated on artists who went to study in France and Belgium. Hennessy had become almost forgotten in Ireland until the Ulster Museum purchased his monumental F?te Day in a Cider Orchard, Normandy. This acquisition, and its subsequent inclusion in Campbell's 'Onlookers in France' exhibition at the Crawford Gallery in Cork in 1993, was an important step in his rediscovery. The present work is another significant discovery as it is Hennessy's first Breton painting to come to light. Like many of his contemporaries, Hennessy was preoccupied with the study of local people as they went about their daily work. The theme of drawing water became a standard portrayal of a daily chore. In this version, the water is carried in two wooden pails suspended on a metal hoop, which prevents the pails from hitting against the legs. The same hoop was also used to carry milk pails from the fields to the dairy. Laundering clothes in a river or stream was another common theme and the wide flat stones, which span the water in this painting, would have been placed there for laundry workers to kneel on. The water spill at the back of the well was designed to keep the water fresh and oxygenated. Many wells in Brittany were regarded as holy places, and were often enclosed in a shrine incorporating elaborate stonework such as that shown here. The wild flowers on both sides of the sandy track are a feature of many of Hennessy's paintings. He was also known for his ability to paint a good sky, and the fading light of evening, as shown here, is a good example of this ability. Its pendant, A Summer Evening is dated 1886, and this work may be dated to the same period. We thank Dominic Milmo-Penny for his assistance in cataloguing this lot William John Hennessy (1839-1917) Breton Girl Returning from the Well Oil on canvas, 122 x 61cm (48 x 24 '') Pendant labels verso Provenance: G. and C. Sadde, Dijon, France Hennessy was born in Thomastown, Co. Kilkenny on the 11th July 1839. His father fled his homeland following his involvement with the Young Ireland movement in 1848; he landed in Canada and moved to New York soon afterwards where his wife and two sons joined him the following year. Unlike the rest of his Irish contemporaries, Hennessy received his training in New York, and although he established a sound career there, he moved to London in 1870. He was equally successful there, and could afford to spend the