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Lot Essay
Jean-Franois Raffalli spent three consecutive summers in Jersey, from 1884 to 1886, basing himself in the small town of Gorey. Far from confining himself solely to depictions of the busy life of the port and its inhabitants, as he had done in his previous few summers in Honfleur and Le Trport, in Jersey Raffalli gave himself to a more complete exploration of the life of the island, depicting village streets, children at play and even a meeting of the Salvation Army.
This period in Raffalli's oeuvre displays a looser style of painting that owes much to his close contact with the Impressionists in the late 1870s and early 1880s. By the mid-80s, however, the artist was declaring his independence from the Impressionist movement and creating a personal style he called caractrisme, a hybrid of Realism and Impressionism. Abandoning his earlier sombre tonalities, this period also saw the development of a lighter palette engendered by his summer vacations and witnessed by such landscapes as the present work.
This period in Raffalli's oeuvre displays a looser style of painting that owes much to his close contact with the Impressionists in the late 1870s and early 1880s. By the mid-80s, however, the artist was declaring his independence from the Impressionist movement and creating a personal style he called caractrisme, a hybrid of Realism and Impressionism. Abandoning his earlier sombre tonalities, this period also saw the development of a lighter palette engendered by his summer vacations and witnessed by such landscapes as the present work.