Art Institute of Chicago

Petanque Players in Brittany

Charles Laval

Date

1890

Medium

Graphite on cream wove paper, laid down on off-white wove paper

Culture

France

Department

Prints and Drawings

Institution

Art Institute of Chicago

This drawing of the French lawn game pétanque shows bowlers in the countryside of Brittany. Their traditional costume appealed to Laval, who had been born and raised in Paris. City dwellers frequently traveled to Brittany in search of a preindustrial age, and it was there that Laval met Paul Gauguin. The two stayed at the same guesthouse in 1886 and—in an extension of their search for the otherworldly—they traveled to Panama and Martinique together in 1887. The friendship came to an end, however, when both artists developed feelings for Madeleine Bernard. Laval married her, but he died from tuberculosis just a few years later.

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