Farmyard near Boulogne sur Mer, France - Henry BONNEFOY

Title : Farmyard near Boulogne sur Mer, France

Artist : Henry BONNEFOY (Boulogne sur Mer 1839 - Lyon 1917)

Technique : Oil on canvas

Dimensions : 98 x 146 cm

Signed lower right

Coming from a Boulogne family, Henry Bonnefoy grew up in the heart of a school in the city, where his father and uncles were directors and teachers of music and fencing. An artist in his younger years, he sold one of his first works to Sir Richard Wallace, a great art collector, in 1854. Local landscapes were his main subjects, which he presented in Paris, at the Salon des Artistes Français in 1857. The young man entered the École des Beaux-Arts in 1861 under the guidance of Léon Cogniet, in order to prepare for the Prix de Rome competitions and the evolution of his palette.

Bonnefoy opened his horizons in the 1860s by traveling to Provence where he brought back numerous works and inspirations. Following the war of 1870, he returned to his land in Boulogne sur Mer and in the following years began stays in England and as far as Denmark.

The vast majority of the painter created bucolic landscapes, where animals and men coexist in the beauty of rural lights.

Our large composition is to be located in a beautiful summer near Henry Bonnefoy's playground, in Boulonnais. The rich and green nature, and the flowering rose bushes could not be synonymous with a landscape of Provence. This almost entire farmyard is made up in the foreground of mallard ducks, Muscovy ducks, chickens and roosters with proud crests, pigeons flying around their perch. To complete the scene, dog and cat are on the upper level where the lady of the house joins them with the donkey and the harnessed mare.