Breton Landscape (1891–92): Art, History and Details

Breton Landscape (1891–92) is in the Cleveland Museum of Art collection. The museum's creator attribution is Jan Verkade (Dutch, 1868–1946).

The work and its context

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

Brittany, in northwestern France, was an important place to Verkade both artistically and spiritually. The artist was captivated by the terrain that differed so greatly from that of Amsterdam, inspiring a series of Breton landscapes. Verkade also converted to Catholicism during his travels to Brittany, shifting the trajectory of his art away from landscapes and toward a revival of religious painting and sacred art.

Object facts

• Title: Breton Landscape
• Date: 1891–92
• Creator attribution: Jan Verkade (Dutch, 1868–1946)
• Culture: Netherlands
• Type: Painting
• Technique: oil on canvas
• Dimensions: Unframed: 65.4 x 54.3 cm (25 3/4 x 21 3/8 in.)
• Collection: Mod Euro - Painting 1800-1960
• Department: Modern European Painting and Sculpture
• Accession number: 2020.117

A detail from the museum

Verkade painted many landscapes, including a drop cloth he painted for a puppet show titled Les Sept Princesses (The Seven Princesses).

Collection credit

Nancy F. and Joseph P. Keithley Collection Gift

Further reading listed by the museum

• Verkade, Willibrord, and Caroline Boyle-Turner. Jan Verkade : Hollandse Volgeling Van Gauguin. Zwolle, Netherlands: Waanders, 1989.
• Boyle-Turner, Caroline. "Jan Verkade." In The Keithley Collection at the Cleveland Museum of Art, edited by Heather Lemonedes Brown, 74-75. Cleveland, OH: The Cleveland Museum of Art, 2022.

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.