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PAUL PEEL OSA RCA 1860 - 1892 Canadian The Fisher Boy oil on canvas, signed, dated 1881 and inscribed P.A. 22 x 18in, 55.9 x 45.7cm Provenance: Canon Fred Whitley, Montreal By descent to the present Private Collection, Victoria Literature: Victoria Baker, Paul Peel: A Retrospective, 1860 - 1892, London Regional Art Gallery, 1986, page 26 Peel had completed his studies at the Pennsylvania Academy in the United States in 1880, and many of its graduates pursued studies in Paris, inspiring others to follow suit. By May of 1881, Peel had joined the American artists' colony at Pont-Aven in Brittany, France. The inscription P.A. on this painting most probably refers to Pont- Aven. The colony, established as early as the 1840s, was based in Brittany during the summers and Paris in the winter. Baker writes that "Brittany held special appeal for artists whose taste for traditional rural themes and peasant imagery, cultivated by the painters of the Barbizon school, was satisfied by the colourfully-costumed Breton inhabitants whose lifestyle and customs were in many ways more medieval than modern." The Breton people were friendly and would readily pose for artists, and Peel seems charmed by the sunny disposition of this boy. The bright, direct light in this exceptional painting is typical of the work Peel did at this time. He uses the flat background surface in this work to reflect light like a mirror, making the figure stand out strongly in contrast. Peel returned to Brittany annually over the next decade, with the Breton peasant emerging as one of his leading pictorial motifs.