Charles Laval (1862–1894), Bretons se promenant (Bretons Walking) (1889), watercolor and gouache on paper, 38.9 × 59 cm, Private collection. The Aven Stream (1889) appears to be an oil sketch made on paper of the stream which eventually made its way to Pont-Aven. Charles Laval (1862–1894), The Aven Stream (1889), oil on paper mounted on canvas, 55 × 46 cm, Musée d’art moderne et contemporain de Strasbourg (MAMCS), Strasbourg. Harvest in Brittany (c 1889) is not a particularly good image, and I suspect its colours are oversaturated. His last few surviving (and accessible) paintings are those which I think show greatest promise, as he starts to develop a more distinctive style from Gauguin. Charles Laval (1862–1894), Harvest in Brittany (c 1889), oil on canvas, dimensions not known, Private collection. Laval was also friends with Vincent van Gogh when Vincent asked several of his friends, including Gauguin, Laval, and Paul Bernard, to send him their portraits, this was Laval’s response, which Vincent treasured and praised to his brother Théo. Charles Laval (1862–1894), Self Portrait (1888), oil on canvas, dimensions not known, Van Gogh Museum, Amsterdam. Wikimedia Commons.īack in France, he painted and signed Going to Market, Brittany (1888), still bearing his distinctive brushstrokes. Charles Laval (1862–1894), Going to Market, Brittany (1888), oil on canvas, dimensions not known, Indianapolis Museum of Art, Indianapolis, IN. With the huge difference in price likely to be realised by a Gauguin rather than a Laval, it is not hard to guess a motive. However, it too has recently been attributed to Laval, which then begs the question of when and how the signature was put on it. Wikimedia Commons.įemmes et Chevre dans le village, usually incorrectly translated as Village in Martinique, but more accurately Women and Goat in the Village, is also dated to 1887, clearly from Martinique, and bears Gauguin’s signature. Charles Laval (attr) (1862–1894) (formerly attr Paul Gauguin), Femmes et Chevre dans le village (Village in Martinique, Women and Goat in the Village) (1887), oil on canvas, 45.7 x 71 cm, The Israel Museum מוזיאון ישראל, Jerusalem. If it was painted on Martinique, that can only mean Laval. It was originally attributed to Gauguin, but more recently has changed to ‘circle of Gauguin’. This gouache Study of a Tree (c 1887), which is believed to have been painted on Martinique, bears a chalk sketch of Gauguin on the reverse. © The Tate Gallery and Photographic Rights © Tate (2016), CC-BY-NC-ND 3.0 (Unported), Charles Laval (1862–1894) or Circle of Paul Gauguin (attr), Study of a Tree (c 1887), chalk and gouache on paper, 20.3 x 26.7 cm, The Tate Gallery (Bequeathed by the Earl of Sandwich 1962), London. Other works from this time, such as this Landscape on Martinique (1887) now in the Van Gogh Museum, resemble those of Gauguin more closely. Charles Laval (1862–1894), Landscape on Martinique (1887), oil on canvas, dimensions not known, Van Gogh Museum, Amsterdam. By this time, his brushstrokes have become very visible, more so than those of Gauguin, and impart texture to the whole painting. I have been unable to find any usable images of Laval’s paintings prior to his stay in Martinique, and suspect that those shown in the Salons of 18 were considerably more conventional than his Landscape on Martinique of 1887. Charles Laval (1862–1894), Landscape on Martinique (1887), oil on canvas, 92.1 × 71.1 cm, Private collection. When Gauguin returned early to France, Laval stayed on, painting in a freer and more energetic style. By June they had travelled back to Martinique. Gauguin and Laval discovered that their aim of living like savages was hardly practical, so Laval earned their keep painting portraits. There he met and made friends with Paul Gauguin, and accompanied him to Panama in April 1887. Like so many other artists, Laval went to work in the artists’ colony at Pont-Aven in Brittany, France, arriving there in the summer of 1886. He was successful from an early age, having his first painting exhibited at the Salon in 1880, when he was only eighteen. Laval was born in Paris, and gained admission to the École des Beaux-Arts there, where he studied under Léon Bonnat, then in the studio of Fernand Cormon. But for Charles Laval (1862–1894) it is even worse: several of his few surviving works appear to have been misattributed to a friend. It is bad enough for an artist to have died at the age of only 32, and for many of their paintings to have disappeared. (William Shakespeare, Macbeth Act 5, scene 5.) That struts and frets his hour upon the stage, Life’s but a walking shadow, a poor player,

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