In 1862, Count Duchâtel invited Jules Breton to his estate at Château Lagrange to paint a pendant to a work in his collects ion, The Weeders (Fig.1), which the artist had exhibited at the previous year’s Salon.

Fig. 1 Jules Breton, The Weeders, 1868. Oil on canvas, 28 ⅛ by 50 ¼ in. (71.4 by 127.6 cm). The Metropolitan Museum of Art, Bequest of Collis P. Huntington, 1900, 25.110.66.

Breton spent several months on the estate, executing sketches and outlining a composition that seemed to satisfy Duchâtel. The final work would be exhibited at the Salon in 1864 and find its permanent home in the Joslyn Art Museum in Omaha. The pendant that inspired its conception (Fig. 1) is in the collects ion of The Metropolitan Museum of Art in New York.

Since his arrival at Château Lagrange, Breton was struck by the outstanding type of women he encountered in the markets and the surrounding fields. To him, they exuded grace and purity of character, with a touch of wild energy. (A. Bourrut Lacouture, Jules Breton. La chanson des blés, Arras, Quimper, Dublin, 2002, p. 113)

The present work dates probably from a subsequent visit in 1863 and is a study for the central figure in The Vintage at Château Lagrange (Fig. 2).

Fig. 2 Jules Breton, The Vintage at Château Lagrange, 1864. Oil on canvas, 36 1/2 by 67 in. (92.7 by 170.1 cm). Joslyn Art Museum, Gift of the Friends of Art, 1932.3. Photograph © Bruce M. White, 2019.

She is flanked by two women, of which only the right one features in the final composition. Breton changed the color of her black skirt to a bright red and considerably brightened up the sky in the finished painting, possibly as a result of public indifference toward The Vintage at Château Lagrange. Other similar preparatory works are known for the central figure, one of which is in the collects ion of the Arras Museum.

Mme. Annette Bourrut Lacouture has authenticated this work for the 2021 sale and will include it in the catalogue raisonné currently in preparation.