AB-PN-1934-001 — Women Picking Poppies (1934)

Technical information

Title : Women Picking Poppies
Date : 1934
Technique : Oil on canvas
Dimensions : 60 × 73 cm
Location : Private collection *

Biographical / historical context

In 1934, Breuillaud takes up a rural motif—harvesting—to pursue, within the PN framework, a search for balance between an Impressionist legacy, a sense of movement, and the first attempts at a firmer structuring of space. Far from the urban zone and its sombre figures, the canvas opens a breath: field, tree line, shifting sky, and silhouettes in action.

The presence of a Parisian exhibition label (Robinot Frères & Cie) indicates that the work circulated early within the exhibition circuit. It testifies to a Breuillaud already recognised in the 1930s for his figurative scenes, prior to later transformations in the corpus.

Formal / stylistic description

Three women pick poppies in an undulating field. The composition is built in bands: in the foreground, tall grass in which the figures are set; in the middle distance, a tree line and a few sketched houses; above, a slightly troubled grey-blue sky. The horizon is high, leaving the field to occupy almost the entire pictorial surface.

Paint is laid in visible gestures—sometimes spiral—giving the landscape an impression of continuous movement. The poppies, in vivid red, punctuate the grass and create a chromatic pulse that guides the eye. The silhouettes, broad and full-bodied, are not anatomically detailed: they exist as coloured masses, slightly fused into the landscape, as if caught in the same vibration as the grasses.

The palette privileges multiple greens, crossed by ochres and rosy beiges for the figures; the reds of the flowers serve as structuring accents. Light is diffuse, without sharp cast shadows: it separates planes more than it dramatizes the scene. The trees and sky, worked with more loaded touches, close the top of the canvas and reinforce the sensation of heavy air and overcast weather.

Comparative analysis / related works

This painting belongs to the rural, luminous strand of the early 1930s, in which Breuillaud treats the field as a rhythmic space: a rising ground, diminishing scales, and an alternation of masses and figurative stopping points. It extends research already engaged in earlier countryside scenes while announcing a desire for synthesis—simplified figures, banded organisation, and heightened attention to the landscape’s structure.

From a distance, one can read affinities with a post-Impressionist sensibility (the movement of the brushstroke, diffuse light) and, more occasionally, with an approach akin to Bonnard or Sisley in the warmth of the harmonies and the way contours are allowed to breathe.

Justification of dating and attribution

The 1934 dating is considered certain. It accords with the still-free handling of paint, the absence of later geometric rigidification, and an open-air palette in which diffuse light organises the planes. The indication of Parisian exhibition circulation reinforces the work’s anchoring in the 1930s context.

Provenance / exhibitions / publications

Public auction: Hôtel Drouot, Paris, 26 November 2025 (Pescheteau-Badin, lot 103).

Exhibition label: Robinot Frères & Cie (Paris).

Private collection.