The Crows
Emile Adélard Breton (1831 - 1902), 1870
oil on canvas, 56 cm x 86.5 cm
Credits: The Mesdag Collection, The Hague
Emile Breton painted many winter scenes. He most likely made this landscape in Courrières in Northern France, where he lived his entire life. He depicted a flock of crows converging from all directions on a dung cart. The birds descend like a whirlwind, introducing movement into the otherwise tranquil, snow-covered expanse.
Mesdag was fascinated by Breton’s work, which he knew from exhibitions in Paris. As a beginning artist, he himself made a few winter landscapes. Mesdag purchased two paintings by Breton and hung The Crows in his house at the Laan van Meerdervoort in The Hague.
- Object number
- hwm0057
- Dimensions
- 56 cm x 86.5 cm, 88.5 cm x 118 cm, 14 cm
- Provenance
- Sold by Goupil & Cie, The Hague (no. 7691, Les corbeaux) to Hendrik Willem Mesdag, The Hague for FRF 1200, 16 May 1873; Collection Museum Mesdag donated by Hendrik Willem Mesdag and Sientje Mesdag-van Houten to the State of the Netherlands, 14 May 1903; Rijksmuseum H.W. Mesdag, The Hague, from 1 August 1903; in trust of the Mauritshuis, The Hague, between 1934 and 1990; in trust of the Rijksmuseum Vincent van Gogh, Amsterdam, from 1 April 1990; Museum Mesdag, in trust of the Van Gogh Museum Foundation, Amsterdam, from 1 July 1994, under the name of De Mesdag Collectie from 2011.
- artist
- Emile Adélard Breton
- Credits
- The Mesdag Collection, The Hague
Amsterdam, Van Gogh Museum, Vive l'impressionisme! Topstukken uit Nederlandse collecties., 10 October 2024-26 January 2025
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Dijk, Maite van, Suijver, Renske, Fitski, M., Smits, C., The Mesdag Collection, Amsterdam, 2011, p. 14, 25
Vergeest, Aukje, The French collection : nineteenth-century French paintings in Dutch public collections, Amsterdam, 2000, p. 83-84
Leighton, John, Vincent van Gogh and his time. Four seasons from the Van Gogh Museum and the H.W. Mesdag Museum, Tokyo, 1997, p. 74-75, 141
Bodt, Saskia de, Leeman, Fred, Leeuw, Ronald de, Pennock, Hanna, Museum Mesdag : catalogue of paintings and drawings, Zwolle, 1996, p. 126, 206