Lot 17: EDWARD EMERSON SIMMONS (1852-1931)Mending Nets, Brittanysigned E. E.

Simmons and dated 82, l.r. - - oil on canvas18 x 24 1/8 in. (46 x 61.3 cm.)PROVENANCESan Francisco, Butterfield and Butterfield (Sale: October 8, 1980, lot 136)EXHIBITEDPittsburgh, Museum of Art, Carnegie Institute, Directions in American Painting 1875-1925, June-Aug. 1982, pp. 80-81, illus. as Figures on a Beach (this exhibition travelled to various locations, 1982-1987)Youngstown, Youngstown State University, The John J. McDonough Museum of Art, Inaugural Exhibition, Oct. 1991-May 1992m p. 29After graduating from Harvard in 1874, Simmons went on to study art at the Boston Museum School and later in Paris at the Academie Julian. By 1881, Simmons settled in Concarneau on the coast of Brittany where he became a leader of an artist colony that included the marine painter Alexander Harrison. Throughout the 1880s, Simmons painted primarily fishermen and peasants local to the coast of Brittany. The present picture depicts a subject typical from this period, illustrating a group of fishermen mending their nets along the coast at the end of day.