Demont-Breton, Virginie |

Virginie Élodie Marie Thérèse Demont-Breton (1859–1935) is a French genre painter. Daughter of the painter and engraver Jules Breton and niece of the painter Émile Breton, she married the painter Adrien Demont. They had three daughters, and one of them, Adrienne Ball-Demont, would become a painter and sculptor.

She had a precocious artistic career, exhibiting her paintings at the Salon des artistes français in 1880 and obtaining the gold medal at the Universal Exhibition in 1883, 1889 and 1900.

Her early works consist mainly of portraits and historical or mythological scenes in the academic style. After settling in the village of Wissant on the North Sea coast in 1890, she started painting the life of fishermen and their families, in a naturalistic style.

My first selection is one of her early works. At an auction at Sotheby’s, it has been estimated between US$40,000 and $60,000.

Virginie Demont-Breton – Une surprise (1879)

My second selection dates from the period when she moved to Wissant. It was also auctioned by Sotheby’s, being estimated between $30,000 and $40,000.

Virginie Demont-Breton – Fillette à la guirlande de fleurs des champs (c.1890)

Virginie Demont-Breton was deeply committed to the recognition of women painters. She joined the Union des femmes peintres et sculpteurs in 1883, and was its president from 1895 to 1901. Together with the sculptor Hélène Bertaux, she obtained the official admission of women to the École des Beaux-Arts and their right to compete to the Prix de Rome.

José Júlio de Souza-Pinto – La Baignade

Charles Lhermitte’s series carries on the Neoclassical tradition in photography:

Charles Augustin Lhermitte – Fillette nue et couronnée de fleurs debout en extension sur la rive d’un fleuve (1912)

Charles Augustin Lhermitte – Fillette nue et couronnée de fleurs jouant sur la rive d’un fleuve (1912)

Charles Augustin Lhermitte – Fillette nue et couronnée de fleurs marchant au bord d’un fleuve parmi les saules (1912)

Charles Augustin Lhermitte – Fillette nue et couronnée de fleurs marchant au bord d’un fleuve parmi les saules (1912)

Charles Augustin Lhermitte – Fillette nue et couronnée de fleurs jouant sur la rive d’un fleuve (1912)

Charles Augustin Lhermitte – Fillette nue et couronnée de fleurs sur la berge d’un fleuve (1912)

Frans Smeers’ little boat enthusiast isn’t quite fully nude, but . . .

Frans Smeers – Fillette au bateau (1906)

Imogen Cunningham, as a precursor to Jock Sturges, captures some of the earliest photographic images of nudist culture, notably this family with a young daughter:

Imogen Cunningham – Family on the Beach (1910) (1)

Imogen Cunningham – Family on the Beach (1910) (2)

Emil Kelemen – Bathing Children

Georges Sauveur Maury – Three Girls by the Sea

Annelise Kretschmer – Untitled (Spiekeroog Island) (1932)

Henri Mella – Petite Baigneuse

Virginie Demont-Breton – Dans l’eau pure (1920s postcard)

Eliot Elisofon – Children Bathing at Fogoloa Beach (1949, Life Magazine)

By mid-century in Europe prepubescent girls at public beaches usually donned bottoms but were not required to cover up their chest. Even today young girls covering their nipples in public remains primarily an American and British convention: