The French Painting

One of the things I inherited from my mother was this painting. I know little about it except for references in the lists she made of all her possessions some years before she died, where she says of it, "French water colour, autumn scene, bought 1937 in King William's Street, London by HH for £4. It originally had guilt frame; reframed in Zanzibar." HH was my mother, Helen Haylett.

In a separate list, which went over much the same ground as the first, but a few years later when she was packing up her flat to move into a home, she wrote, "Picture of Autumn to OHH," OHH being the home, Old Hastings House. That she took it to OHH, rather than one of the many other pictures she had, indicates that it had a very special place in her affections, having been bought at some expense not long before she set off to take up her post in Zanzibar..

It's interesting that she knew it was French. The picture is signed, but this is illegible, so the shop which sold it to her must have told her something about it.

So we are left with the subject of the picture, the man walking towards us carrying something large on his back. It could be the French equivalent of a coracle, though it's a bit small for that. It could be the equivalent of the Highland Scots' creel used, for example, for carrying peats. Or it could be something unique to some rural part of France.

I'm also intrigued by the man's clothing which, surely, should give a clue as the the location in which the picture was painted, and also by whatever the 'stick' is that he's using.

I just wish my mother had written a little more about this painting - which I have always loved; and I would like her to know that it's still in its Zanzibar frame, and is in the safe hands of one of her grand-daughters, who has just had it cleaned.