Henri RIVIÈRE
1864 - 1951
Breton houses nestled beneath the pine trees by the sea (Ris beach in Douarnenez)
Watercolour over charcoal lines
265 × 416 mm
Inscribed and dated in charcoal in the bottom right-hand corner Grand Ris, Sept. 1908. On the reverse, annotated Tempête au Grand Ris
The artist’s stamp in the bottom right-hand corner (Lugt 1361; stamp used from 1898 to 1916)
Rivière’s first stay in Brittany dates back to 1884. In 1891, he discovered Loguivy-de-la-Mer, situated right next to Coz Castel, at the mouth of the Trieux, in the Côtes-d’Armor. After spending several summers on this stretch of the Channel coast, he bought a plot of land in Loguivy and had a house built there (in 1895), where the Rivière family spent almost every summer until 1916. This did not prevent him from also renting a house in Morgat, in Douarnenez Bay. As a travelling artist, Rivière then criss-crossed Brittany in search of ever-changing places to paint. Thus, in
1908, he spent his summer in Brittany: in Morgat in June, in Loguivy in July and August, and in Douarnenez in September (Pierre Gamet, Henri Rivière, Peintre et imagier de la Bretagne, Douarnenez, 1989, pp. 16–17).