Lot Essay
Lamb spent the summer of 1910 at Doelan in Brittany where he stayed with the Favennec family. The paintings of peasant boys from this date are amongst the earliest of his oils and the most Gauguin-esque. Frank Rutter, reviewing the Camden Town Group Exhibition in the Sunday Times, 18 June 1911, in which Lamb exhibited three Breton paintings, described Lamb as 'a modern classicist just as Gauguin - whom he so discriminately admires - was also essentially classic'.
(See W. Baron, loc. cit.)
The present work has previously been confused with 'Breton Youth' a similar panel of the same year. However, this work does not have the 'en plein air' treatment of 'Breton Peasant Boy' (no.21 in the Camden Town Group Exhibition), which was painted in the orchard in front of 'Kersimon', the home of the Favennec family. The present work depicts the same boy against the background of the same landscape. Moreover, the 1948 catalogue of Sir Louis Fergusson's collection confirms that the present work was exhibited as no.22 in the 1911 exhibition
(See W. Baron, loc. cit.)
The present work has previously been confused with 'Breton Youth' a similar panel of the same year. However, this work does not have the 'en plein air' treatment of 'Breton Peasant Boy' (no.21 in the Camden Town Group Exhibition), which was painted in the orchard in front of 'Kersimon', the home of the Favennec family. The present work depicts the same boy against the background of the same landscape. Moreover, the 1948 catalogue of Sir Louis Fergusson's collection confirms that the present work was exhibited as no.22 in the 1911 exhibition