The Breton Legend

Maxence painted this canvas in 1906 for the Paris house of Louis-Gustave Richelot, a surgeon who was also a pianist. A year earlier Richelot had composed a piece of music called Breton Legend, and the picture may well be that music turned into a scene. A young woman in the festive costume of Pont-Aven, with its tall white coiffe, shelters under a dolmen, hands clasped, eyes wide with fright. Beside her a fairy, or perhaps a sorceress, wrapped in an ermine cloak, leans close with one finger raised. Standing stones fill the distance, a copper-coloured full moon hangs low on the horizon, and a knot of small red korrigans, the troublesome spirits of Breton folklore, stirs in the shadows. The massive gilt frame arches over it all like a stage. The Musée d'Orsay bought the painting in 2013.