Francois-Alfred Delobbe (French, 1835-1920) Oil/Canvas

Francois-Alfred Delobbe (French, 1835-1920) Oil on Canvas. Signed lower left. Francois-Alfred Delobbe, a pupil of Thomas Couture and William Bouguereau, was a talented naturalist artist, who excelled in history and daily life genre paintings, exhibiting annually at the Paris Salon since his debut in 1861. Delobbe, like Jules Breton and Bastion-Lepage, was best known for his beautiful, somewhat idealized depictions of peasantry - capturing harvesters, fishermen, shepherdesses, washwomen and children at play in tattered rags with an aggrandized, classical beauty that are academically drawn and softly lit through diffuse and reverse lighting. A great deal of Delobbe's inspiration and models came from Concarneau - a rural fishing port and artist colony in Brittany, France, that the artist regularly visited from 1875 until his death. In addition to coastal waters, Concarneau boasts many fresh water inlets and estuaries off the Pont-Aven that are also ideal for crawfish, and may have served as the locale and inspiration for this fine depiction of children fishing for crawfish. 53" x 36"