Provenance
Acquired from the artist in November 1888 by (Boussod, Valadon et Cie., Paris and New York); sold 16 September 1889 to Montandon.[1] (Ambroise Vollard [1866-1939], Paris), by 1922 until at least 1936.[2] Possibly (Etienne Bignou, Paris).[3] William A. Cargill [d. 1962], Carruth, Scotland, by 1956;[4] (his estate sale, Sotheby's, London, 11 June 1963, no. 29); purchased by Acciarri for (Hector Brame, Paris) for Paul Mellon, Upperville, [5] VA; gift 1983 to NGA.
[1] According to _La Ronde des petites Bretonnes_, exh. cat., Musée des beaux arts, Rennes, 1997, p. 6.
[2] Listed in the Vollard inventory of 1 January 1922, as 'Danse bretonne 72 x 92 10000,' Archives Vollard, Musée d'Orsay, Paris. Lent by Vollard to exhibitions in Paris and New York in 1936.
[3] A photograph of this painting is included in the albums from the Bignou Gallery, now at the documentation center of the Musée d'Orsay (copy, NGA curatorial files).
[4] According to John Rewald, _Post-Impressionism from van Gogh to Gauguin_, 1956, p. 289, the painting was in a private collection in Scotland at that time; this is probably Cargill. See also Frances Fowle, _Impressionism and Scotland_, Exh. cat., National Galleries of Scotland, 2008, p. 127.
[5] Annotated sales catalogue in the library of the National Gallery of Scotland; Acciarri also listed in Paul Mellon papers in NGA curatorial files.
Accession Number
1983.1.19
Medium
oil on canvas
Dimensions
overall: 73 x 92.7 cm (28 3/4 x 36 1/2 in.) | framed: 86.7 x 106 x 3.5 cm (34 1/8 x 41 3/4 x 1 3/8 in.)
Classification
Painting
Credit Line
Collection of Mr. and Mrs. Paul Mellon
Tags
Painting Impressionist & Modern (1851–1900) Oil Painting Canvas French
Background & Context
Background Story
Breton Girls Dancing, Pont-Aven, painted in 1888, marks a pivotal moment in Gauguin's artistic development - his break with Impressionism and the emergence of the synthetic style that would define his career. The painting depicts three Breton girls in traditional white coiffes performing a round dance in a village street, observed by a seated figure in the foreground.
Gauguin first visited Pont-Aven, a village in Brittany, in 1886. The region's distinctive culture - its Catholic piety, its traditional costumes, its pre-industrial rhythms - provided the alternative to modern Parisian life that Gauguin sought. Breton Girls Dancing captures a folk tradition that was already disappearing in 1888, making the painting both a record of regional culture and a statement of Gauguin's desire to escape the modern world.
Stylistically, the painting represents a decisive break with Impressionism. Where Monet painted the transient effects of natural light, Gauguin replaced observed color with symbolic color: the grass is an intense, unnatural green; the girls' coiffes are painted in flat whites that deny volume; the tree trunks are outlined with bold dark contours. This approach - which Emile Bernard called Cloisonnism, after the medieval enamel technique - would lead directly to Gauguin's Symbolist masterworks in Tahiti.
Cultural Impact
Gauguin's Pont-Aven paintings established Symbolism as a major alternative to Impressionism. By replacing observed reality with a vision shaped by emotion and idea, he opened a path that would lead to the Fauves, the Expressionists, and ultimately every artist who sought to paint not what the eye sees but what the soul feels.
Why It Matters
Breton Girls Dancing captures the moment when Gauguin stopped painting what he saw and started painting what he imagined. It is the beginning of the quest for a primitive, unspoiled world that would take him to Tahiti, to the Marquesas, and to his grave - and that would reshape the course of modern art.