Lot 57: PAUL PEEL 1860 - 1892

PAUL PEEL 1860 - 1892 MOTHER'S HELP (LA PREMIÈRE NOTION) signed and dated upper left Paul Peel, 1883; titled Mother's Help and inscribed with the name of a former owner on the frame on the reverse; exhibition label verso oil on canvas 124.5 by 94.6 cm. 49 by 37 ¼ in.

Annual Salon Show, Paris, 1883, no. 1852, titled La Première Notion

Toronto Industrial Exhibition, 1883, no. 183, titled Mother's Lesson

Western Fair, 1883, titled La Première Notion

Royal Canadian Academy - Art Association of Montreal, 1884, no. 51, titled Young Mother

Royal Canadian Academy - Ontario Society of Artists, 1888, no. 130, titled Mother's Little Help

Art Association of Montreal, 1889, no. 55, titled Mother's Little Help

West Fair, 1921, titled Mother's Help, Normandy

Art Gallery of Toronto, Inaugural Exhibition, 1926, no. 239, titled Mother's Help

Paul Peel Retrospective, 1860 - 1892, London 1986, no. 18, titled La Première Notion / Mother's Help

Victoria Baker, Paul Peel, A Retrospective, 1860 - 1892, London, 1986, p. 31, illustrated, p. 109, no. 18

Oliver, Coate & Co., October, 1890, lot 7, under the title Mother's Help, Normandy

Purchased by R. MacDonald

Ryland Estate, Montreal

Thomas Jenkins, Toronto, by 1921

Sale of the Jenkins Estate, Toronto, January, 1934, lot 1209 (titled Mother's Helper)

Allan Ross, Toronto, 1934

Private Collection, Oakville (thence by descent)

From London, Ontario, via Thomas Eakins' studio in Philadelphia for three years, then a few months in London at the Royal Academy and finally five years in Paris studying with both Gérôme and Constant, Paul Peel became Canada's first internationally famous artist in Europe.

Peel was technically gifted and it shows in his exquisite renderings of the human figure. He had visited the Brittany area of France and frequently combined his interest in their traditional costume with composing paintings expressing nostalgia and a sentimental sweetness that catered to popular taste in the post-industrial revolution era. His preference for painting mothers and children became his specialization, and the subject for which he is best-known.

This image of a mother teaching her child to knit is one in a series that canonized his work and asserted his outstanding reputation before his early death at age thirty-two.

Writing about a very similar work, Baker comments:

Peel consciously poses his models in the studio with an eye to achieving a particular visual effect, dressing them in traditional Breton costumes surrounded by various objects, or props, related to the general theme. Every element of the composition has been carefully planned with almost scientific precision. In keeping with the peaceful, idyllic nature of the subject, Peel aims to achieve a sense of classical harmony and unity in his design by carefully balancing forms and by the arrangement of the objects. Forms are rendered more volumetrically and appear to be more weighty and monumental. Colour is rich and carefully harmonized.