Lettre autographe signée au peintre Lucien Hector Monod "une figure de vieux Breton que je trouverai certainement dans un village"

Autograph letter from the painter Pascal Dagnan-Bouveret to the painter Lucien Monod, declining an invitation in order to work on a new painting (Un vieux breton), now preserved at Chaalis, in the museum of the royal abbey. One folded sheet.
Trained in the studios of Alexandre Cabanel and Jean-Léon Gérôme, Dagnan-Bouveret received the second Prix de Rome. Of naturalist inspiration, he devoted himself to religious painting and had a prolific career as a portraitist at the end of his life. He received prestigious commissions from the Countess of Béarn and from the New York Frick family.
His visits to Brittany inspired numerous canvases: "Je vais en Bretagne pour travailler beaucoup, aussi vite que je le pourrai, à une figure de vieux breton, que je ne trouverai certainement que dans un village et pas en ville, et il me faut aussi, toujours pour un travail une installation à la campagne [...]" ["I am going to Brittany to work hard, as quickly as I can, on a figure of an old Breton, whom I will certainly only find in a village and not in town, and I also need, always for work, a countryside installation [...]"]