Skitse af et fiskerpar, siddende på stranden med kurve og kasser. 1811 - 1889

Jules Dupré sketched this image of a fishing couple on paper with graphite. Dupré was part of the French Barbizon school of painters, a group interested in depicting rural life and the natural landscape. This sketch gives us a glimpse into the lives of working-class people in 19th century France, a subject that gained prominence as artists sought to represent the realities of everyday life. The image is simple. It focuses on the figures and their tools, suggesting a story of labor and perhaps a moment of rest. We might consider how the rise of industrialization influenced this focus on the working class, as well as the art market that valorized the depiction of rural life, as the population increasingly moved to urban centers. To fully understand the context of this sketch, we might look into the economic conditions of French fishing communities in the 1800s, and also into the institutions, such as the French Academy, that shaped artistic taste and the market for paintings such as these.