Blessing of a Yacht on the Belon River (1899): Art, History and Details

Blessing of a Yacht on the Belon River (1899) is in the Cleveland Museum of Art collection. The museum's creator attribution is Maurice Denis (French, 1870–1943).

The work and its context

The museum's open-access catalogue describes the work:

Maurice Denis made this painting during the summer of 1899 while vacationing with his family in the coastal village of Le Pouldu in Brittany in northwestern France. Two-thirds of this canvas is filled by the lavender-pink surface of the water, dotted with touches of color that suggest reflections of flags and sails on the Belon River. Local women wearing traditional headdresses observe the scene from the riverbank in the foreground, shaded by trees whose foliage frames the top of the composition.

Object facts

• Title: Blessing of a Yacht on the Belon River
• Date: 1899
• Creator attribution: Maurice Denis (French, 1870–1943)
• Culture: France
• Type: Painting
• Technique: oil on canvas
• Dimensions: Unframed: 75 x 80 cm (29 1/2 x 31 1/2 in.)
• Collection: Mod Euro - Painting 1800-1960
• Department: Modern European Painting and Sculpture
• Accession number: 2020.110

A detail from the museum

Denis was an extremely prolific artist who experimented with other art forms. His decorative murals can be viewed in many French churches as well as on the ceiling of the Champs Élysées Theatre in Paris.

Collection credit

Nancy F. and Joseph P. Keithley Collection Gift

Further reading listed by the museum

• Œuvres de Bonnard, Maurice Denis, Ibels, Aristide Maillol, Hermann Paul, Ranson, Roussel, Serusier, Vallotton, Vuillard: catalogue. Paris: MM. Bernheim Jeune et fils, 1900.
• Exposition Maurice Denis 1888-1924 [Parijs, 1924]. Paris: Union centrale des Arts décoratifs, 1924.
• Pont-Aven: Gauguin und sein Kreis in der Bretagne. Zürich: Kunsthaus Zürich, 1966.

View the collection record

See the museum's photographs and full catalogue entry. Catalogue text is reproduced from the Cleveland Museum of Art's open-access data, with HTML formatting removed. This object and its supplied image are designated CC0.