Oil painting, 'A Bull in a Normandy Pasture', Jacques-Raymond Brascassat, ca. 1855

A bull reaching leaves at the top of a small talus with a wide open field in the middle distance and hills vanishing in the mist in the background.

Given by Hugues Krafft

Given by Hugues Krafft, 1886

Historical significance: This painting is a fine example of Brascassat output. Although he produced a few history paintings, he specialised in landscape paintings often enlivened by animals. This interest in rural subjects and detailed observation of nature is characteristic of the French Realist movement emerged in the 1840s. Despite his association with the Barbizon painters, his style dominated by a refine and luminous brushwork is reminiscent of the Dutch painters of the 17th century. 17th-century Dutch art aroused a new interest in the 19th century and was quite influential on such painters as Auguste and Rosa Bonheur.
By comparison with another version signed and dated 1855, Christie's New York, 8 Apr 2008, lot 47, one can assess that the present painting was probably executed around the same period. Brascassat seemed to have particularly favoured the depiction of bulls. Two paintings are particularly remarkable: Two Bulls in the Musée des Beaux-Arts, Bordeaux and Bulls fighting in the Musée des Beaux-Arts, Nantes.

19th-century French art is marked by a succession of movements based on a more or less close relationship with nature. At the beginning of the century, Romantic artists were fascinated by nature they interpreted as a mirror of the mind. They investigated human nature and personality, the folk culture, the national and ethnic origins, the medieval era, the exotic, the remote, the mysterious and the occult. This movement was heralded in France by such painter as Eugène Delacroix (1798-1863). In its opposition to academic art and its demand for a modern style Realism continued the aims of the Romantics. They assumed that reality could be perceived without distortion or idealization, and sought after a mean to combine the perception of the individual with objectivity. This reaction in French painting against the Grand Manner is well represented by Gustave Courbet (1819-1877) who wrote a 'Manifesto of Realism', entitled Le Réalisme published in Paris in 1855. These ideas were challenged by the group of the Barbizon painters, who formed a recognizable school from the early 1830s to the 1870s and developed a free, broad and rough technique. They were mainly concerned by landscape painting and the rendering of light. The works of Narcisse Virgile Diaz de la Peña (1807-1876), Jules Dupré (1811-1889), Théodore Rousseau (1812-1867), Constant Troyon (1810-1865) and Jean-François Millet (1814-1875) anticipate somehow the plein-air landscapes of the Impressionists.

Jacques-Raymong Brascassat (1804-1867) first trained with the landscape painter Théodore Richard (1782-1859) in Bordeaux. He then studied under Louis Hersent (1777-1860) at the Ecole des Beaux-Arts in Paris and went to Rome where he befriended Théodore-Caruelle d'Aligny (1798-1871), with whom he improved his study of nature. He later joined him in Barbizon upon his return to France.

This painting is a fine example of Brascassat landscape paintings often enlivened with animals such as goats, sheep or bulls. His work was influenced by the Dutch animal painters of the 17th century who extensively portrayed animals in sunny landscape. This painting shows Brascassat skills as an animal painter and his complete understanding of the bull's anatomy.

298-1886