The Song of the Lark
Jules Breton (French, 1827–1906)
1884
View the original$19
Type
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Materials & printing
Archival matte paper, 189 g/m² (10.3 mil), sourced from Japan, printed with multicolor water-based inkjet so every brushstroke stays crisp. Framed prints arrive ready to hang in a .75″ ayous-wood frame with an acrylite front. Sized to standard frames by cropping, never stretching — at most about 3% comes off one edge, which isn’t noticeable on most pieces, and we only offer a size when it stays that small.
Shipping & returns
Made to order and delivered in 5–8 business days (2–4 to print, 3–4 in transit). US shipping only for now. Because each print is made for your order, all sales are final — but if it arrives damaged or defective, send us a photo within 14 days and we’ll replace it free. Full policy.
Why is it this affordable?
A thin, flat margin on every piece — just enough to keep the store running. Most of what you pay is the print itself. We only sell sizes that reproduce at full quality, and we don’t mark up the large sizes the way most shops do.
About this work
A lone peasant girl pauses her work to listen to a lark singing in the distance. Her emotional response to this moment of natural beauty is accentuated by the glow of the sun rising behind her, suffusing the landscape with golden light.
Jules Breton specialized in scenes of rustic life in the countryside. Having been raised in the rural village of Courrières in northern France, he admired the people living there for their resourcefulness and connection to nature and gained immense popularity by painting them in his idealized style.
- Medium
- Oil on canvas
- Original size
- 110.6 × 85.8 cm (43 1/2 × 33 3/4 in.)
Museum record · 1 owner · 16 exhibitions
Provenance
- Bought from the artist by George A. Lucas, Paris, for Samuel P. Avery in 1885; sold to Henry Field (died 1890), Chicago, 1885; by descent to his wife, Mrs. Florence Lathrop Field; transferred to the Art Institute in October 1894; given to the Art Institute, 1916.
Exhibitions
- Paris, Salon, 1885.
- Chicago, Worlds Columbian Exhibition: Loan Collection: Foreign Masterpieces Owned in the United States, 1893.
- Hartford, Wadsworth Atheneum, An Exhibition of Literature and Poetry in Painting Since 1850, January-February, 1933.
- Los Angeles Art Association, The Song of the Lark by Jules Breton Lent by the Art Institute of Chicago, March 1935, no cat. Dallas, Museum of Fine Arts, June 1935, no Springs Fine Arts Center, Gay Nineties Exhibition, Fall 1950.
- Denver Art Museum, Spring Quarterly Exhibition: Man at Work, March 2-April 27, 1952, no Angeles, Municipal Art Gallery, Old Favorites Revisited, October 6-November 8, 1959.
- Muskegon, Hackley Art Gallery, November 1-30, 1955.
- Washington, DC, National Collection of Fine Arts (Smithsonian Institution), American Art in the Barbizon Mood, January 23-April 20, 1975.
- Omaha, Joslyn Art Museum, Jules Breton and the French Rural Tradition, November 6, 1982-January 2, 1983, traveled to Memphis, Dixon Gallery and Gardens, January 16-March 6, 1983 and Williamstown, Sterling and Francine Clark Institute, April 2-June 5, 1983.
- Tokyo, Seibu Museum of Art, The Impressionist Tradition: Masterpieces from the Art Institute of Chicago, October 18-December 17, 1985, traveled to Fukuoka Art Museum, January 5-February 2, 1986 and Kyoto Municipal Museum of Art, March 4-April 13, 1986.
- Norfolk, Va., Chrysler Museum, Paris 1889: American Artists at the Universal Exposition, September 29-December 17, 1989, no cat. no.; Philadelphia Academy of the Fine Arts, February 1-April 15, 1990; Memphis Brooks Museum of Art, May 6-July 15; New York Historical Society, September 5-November 15, 1990.
- The Art Institute of Chicago, Chicago’s Dream A World’s Treasure: The Art Institute of Chicago 1893-1993, November 1-January 9, 1994, no cat. no., figs.
- Niigata Prefectural Museum of Modern Art, Masterworks of Modern Art from The Art Institute of Chicago, April 20-May 29, 1994, traveled to Nagoya, Aichi Prefectural Museum of Art, June 10-July 1994 and Yokohama Museum of Art, August 6-September 25, 1994.
- Yamanahsi Prefectural Museum, Return to Nature: J.F. Millet, the Barbizon Artists, and the Renewal of the Rural Tradition, September 26-December 12, 1998.
- Musée des Beaux-Arts d'Arras, Jules Breton: La chanson des blés, March 16-June 2, 2002, traveled to Quimper, France, Musée des Beaux-Arts, June 15-September 8, 2002 and Dublin, National Gallery of Ireland, September 23-December 15, 2002 ().
- Chicago, David and Alfred Smart Museum of Art, Looking and Listening in Nineteenth-Century France, November 6, 2007—March 23, 2008.
- Lincoln, Nebraska, Sheldon Museum of Art, Visual Cather: The Writer's Pictorial Imagination, May 19-August 30, 2015, no cat. Worcester, Worcester Art Museum, Coming Away: Winslow Homer in England, November 11, 2018-February 4, 2018 and Milwaukee, Milwaukee Art Museum, March 1-May 20, 2018.
