A Landscape at Pont Aven
Pont Aven, Brittany, 1888
Oil on canvas
66.1 x 100 cm
Gauguin stayed in the village of Pont Aven in Brittany in 1886 and again in 1888, the date of this view.
It shows a group of thatched farm buildings set in a fertile landscape, at odds with the reality of waning agricultural productivity in Brittany.
Doubts have been raised about the painting’s authenticity due to a clumsiness in the composition and in the handling of the paint. However, there are some fine passages which are possibly beyond a copyist’s capabilities. Perhaps the inferior elements simply show Gauguin merely going through the motions.
Purchased 1948 (No.48.12)
