Rating and value of paintings by Virginie Demont Breton

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Rating and value of the artist Virginie Demont Breton   

Virginie Demont Breton is an artist known to lovers of naturalistic canvases. Now, prices for her works are rising under the auctioneers' hammer.

Her oils on canvas are particularly prized, especially by French buyers, and the price at which they sell on the art market ranges from €20 to €383,920, a significant delta but one that speaks volumes about the value that can be attributed to the artist's works.

In 2019, his oil on canvas Femme de pêcheur venant baigner ses enfants,dating from 1881, sold for €383,920, while it was estimated at between €87,250 and €130,880. Its price is stable. 

Order of value from a simple work to the most prestigious

Style and technique of artist Virginie Demont Breton    

It is precisely in this tension between realism and poetic exaltation that lies the singularity of Virginie Demont-Breton's style and technique :

How can we explain, in an artist rooted in the academic tradition, such an ability to capture the raw power of the elements and the intensity of human emotions?

The daughter of renowned painter Jules Breton, she inherits an impeccable technical mastery, but her approach goes beyond mere virtuosity.

Her compositions, often monumental, marry rigorous precision of drawing with a vibrant palette, where the bright hues of the sea skies mingle with deep shadows, sculpting powerful, expressive figures.

Frequently working on large formats, Demont-Breton favors subjects borrowed from the daily lives of fishermen and their families, but without ever falling into simple illustration.

His touch, firm and masterful, plays on contrasts of light to magnify muscular bodies and faces marked by wind and sea.

The rendering of textures, whether skin, clothing or raging waves, testifies to a meticulous attention to detail, while allowing a deeply empathetic sensitivity to shine through.

Through her art, she manages to elevate these everyday scenes to the rank of visual epic, blending realism and idealization in a striking balance.

The career of Virginie Demont Breton   

Virginie Dumont Breton (1859 - 1935) was a French artist born in Pas de Calais.

Virginie Demont-Breton found her first inspirations in a family universe steeped in art.

Daughter of Jules Breton, a painter renowned for his rural scenes, she grew up in an atmosphere conducive to creation, where drawing and painting were at the heart of daily life.

Early on, she showed promising talent and decided to follow in her father's footsteps, moving towards a luminous realism imbued with sincerity. Unlike her father, she draws her subjects from the maritime world, fascinated by the harshness and poetry of fishermen's lives.

Her marriage to painter Adrien Demont reinforces this anchorage. Together, they settled in Wissant, a village on the Opal Coast, whose wild landscapes and inhabitants would inspire much of her work.

This is where she painted vibrant scenes of life, sensitively capturing the daily lives of seafaring families, their joys as well as their hardships.

Her paintings, both realistic and deeply human, earned her rapid recognition in the salons, where she received several medals. 

Beyond her artistic work, Virginie is actively committed to the place of women in the art world.

As president of the Union of Women Painters and Sculptors, she campaigns for their visibility in exhibitions and for their recognition in a milieu still largely dominated by men.

Her life reflects a rare balance: she combines an artistic career, feminist commitment and family life, while remaining faithful to her passion for the sea and its inhabitants.

Virginie Demont-Breton thus embodies the image of an accomplished artist, anchored in her time but resolutely turned towards wider horizons.

Focus on Les Éplucheuses de crevette, Virginie Demont-Breton

In her canvas Les Éplucheuses de crevettes (1887) that Virginie Demont-Breton reveals the full depth of her insight into the everyday life of fishermen: how do you transform a simple, familiar scene into a work of such emotional intensity?

On this canvas, the women, seated on wooden stools, are absorbed in their task. Their skilful hands skin the shrimp with almost mechanical precision, while their serious, concentrated faces reflect the fatigue of a harsh, laborious life. 

The choice of composition is remarkably effective. Virginie places her figures in the foreground, almost at eye level, creating an immediate proximity with the viewer.

The soft, diffused light, probably that of a misty morning on the coast, envelops the figures and softens their features, while accentuating the contrast between the rosy flesh of the hands and shrimp and the neutral tones of the clothes and décor.

The sea, barely visible in the background, remains suggested, like a whisper, reminding us that this daily toil is intimately linked to the elements. 

Beyond the technical virtuosity, it's the artist's tenderness for her subjects that shines through. The aim is not to idealize the scene, but to render with accuracy and dignity the weight of these repeated gestures, the wear and tear of these simple yet essential lives.

Les Éplucheuses de crevettes is more than a genre scene: it's an ode to resilience and the discreet beauty of ordinary work, which Virginie Demont-Breton, in her humanist sensibility, elevates to the rank of a silent epic.

The imprint of Virginie Demont Breton on her period

In the end, it's in her ability to reconcile realism and emotion that Virginie Demont-Breton stands out as an essential figure of her time: how, in an environment still largely dominated by men, was she able to impose such a personal vision while anchoring herself in the major currents of the time?

Her scenes of maritime life, imbued with dignity and simplicity, contrast with the great academic compositions of Jean-Léon Gérôme or Alexandre Cabanel, whose mythological or historical subjects dominated official salons.

Where these painters focus on heroic or idealized narratives, Demont-Breton chooses the everyday life of fishermen, with a sincerity that brings his work close to that of Jules Bastien-Lepage, a cantor of the rural world, or Rosa Bonheur, who sublimates peasant life.

However, it's her take on the female condition that truly sets her apart.

Where Bastien-Lepage lingers on peasants at work and Bonheur magnifies animals, Demont-Breton places women at the heart of her work, emphasizing their central role in the maritime economy and family life.

Through this approach, she moves away from simple genre painting to achieve a universal scope.

As president of the Union of Women Painters and Sculptors, she also acts in favor of the recognition of women artists, joining the struggles of figures such as Berthe Morisot or Mary Cassatt, although her style remains faithful to realism.

Far from fading behind the great names of her time, Virginie Demont-Breton imposes an art where simple life becomes a source of greatness, where each scene, each character, finds a silent but irresistible force.

Knowing the value of a work

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