Adolphe Monticelli, The Hayfield

Two peasant women and a child stand on the left, and black and white cart horses on the right. In the background two wagons are fully loaded with hay, a dog perches on top of the one in centre. The skyline of a village, with a bell tower and roofs, is shown in the distance. Monticelli made a number of paintings of peasants at work in the fields, both in his native Provence and elsewhere in France.

Monticelli was born in Marseille in 1824 in very humble circumstances. In the 1850s he moved to Paris where he studied under Paul Delaroche at the École des Beaux-Arts. In the following decade the artist spent his time mostly in Provence, returning to Paris either late in 1868 or early in 1869. He stayed in the capital until forced to flee in the face of the Prussian invasion in 1870. He returned for good to his native Provence, where he seems to have rediscovered a deep interest in landscape. He was back in Marseille late in the spring of 1871. The Hayfield may have been painted around this moment, although it is not known where this particular harvest scene is set.

Monticelli’s pictures of the early 1870s at first glance suggest the work of the Impressionists, particularly in their colours and surface textures. Yet between 1871 and 1886, the year of the painter’s death, his style underwent a most dramatic transformation. With each year his work became freer and more vigorous, his colours brighter and more intense. He made his surfaces thick with impasto, although the wood panel beneath was almost always kept visible as a shadow tone. The style of The Hayfield clearly fits with this stage of the painter’s career.

The National Gallery has a significant group of late works by Monticelli, dating from the 1870s and 1880s, all of which entered the collection in 1956, when they arrived from Tate. However, this painting was acquired through the Sir Hugh Lane Bequest in 1917, which is currently on long-term loan to Dublin City Gallery The Hugh Lane.