Thyssen-Bornemisza Museo Nacional Search Ir al contenido principal

Navegación superior (EN)

About Us Support Become Friend Shop Tickets
Español
Visit Collection Exhibitions Activities Education Search
  • Visit
  • Collection
  • Exhibitions
  • Activities
  • Education

Thyssen - Navegación superior (EN)

About Us Support Become Friend Shop Tickets
Español
©
Carmen Thyssen Collection
Emile Bernard

Inside a Shop in Pont-Aven

1887
Oil on canvas.
45.5 x 55.3 cm
Carmen Thyssen Collection
Inv. no. (
CTB.1996.8
)
Room F
Level 0
Carmen Thyssen Collection and Temporary exhibition rooms
A B C D E F G H I J Hall Temporary exhibition rooms Access to Permanent Collection Entrance Access to Carmen Thyssen Collection Paseo del Prado Garden
A 17th and 18th Centuries. Old Masters B 19th Century. North American Landscape C 19th Century. French Naturalist Landscape D 19th Century. Impressionism E 19th Century. Monet and North American Impressionism F 19th Century. Gauguin and Postimpressionism G 19th and 20th Centuries. Neo Impressionism and its Wake H 20th Century. Early Avant-gardes I 20th Century. Between the Wars Painting. Cubism, Abstraction and Surrealism J 20th Century. North American Painting and Others • HALL

For the young Émile Bernard, aged nineteen, 1887 was a year of achievements. Bernard and his friends made the most of their conversations and of the new expressive modes they discovered together. Thus, Émile Bernard and Louis Anquetin rejected pointillism, which they had practised in 1886, and adopted cloisonnism. They shared Van Gogh's enthusiasm for Japanese prints and produced very avant-garde paintings.

During the summer of 1887, Bernard stayed at Saint-Briac, on the north coast of Bretagne, and then at Pont-Aven, on the south coast, in the absence of Gauguin, who was in Martinique.

He painted this picture in Pont-Aven. The general style is cloisonnist, with marked outlines, light colours applied with wide, uniform brushstrokes, but it is still reminiscent of pointillism in the face of the Breton woman on the left. Bernard adopted a more radical synthetism after 1888, while this painting shows still an intermediate technique.

The subject is dealt with in the style of Japanese prints: the figures are not centred and are cut, there is an absence of perspective which flattens the image and the audacious motif of the wheel takes up half the space of the composition.

The scene represents the inside of a grocer's shop with, at the back, the shopkeeper behind the counter, her face framed by two petrol lamps. On the counter three jars with sweets stand in a line.

On the left, in profile, there is a woman with the bonnet and collar typical of Pont-Aven, waiting to be served.

The large wheel is a cast iron wheel with typical curved spokes, used to operate a belt, undoubtedly for the maintenance of the goods stocked in the cellar. This large circular shape gives an esoteric atmosphere to the scene; in fact it is used with this aim by Émile Bernard, who experiments with pictorial symbolism.

The scene is mute, the two women are not looking at each other, which adds mystery to the subject.

At the top, on the right, a mirror reflects the inside of the shop, with a suspended petrol lamp and the outline of a woman. At the time, all grocers also served drinks, and one can feel in this composition the atmosphere of a bar in the style of Toulouse-Lautrec. (Lautrec painted Bernard's portrait that same year).

This painting has been entitled The Spinning-Wheel due to a lack of knowledge of the subject; a spinning-wheel could never be so large and have such a diameter. In any case, spinning was only done at home, and never in a public place.

Émile Bernard painted an audacious work in its composition, inspired by everyday life in Pont-Aven. It testifies to his artistic experiments in that transition year of 1887.

Catherine Puget
 

19th Century19th Century - French paintingPaintingOilcanvas
Listen
Download image Print page

Products and publications

Spanish & Sisters x Lacroix crochet necklace

Spanish & Sisters x Lacroix crochet necklace

68.00 €

Carmen Thyssen-Bornemisza Collection Catalogue  V1 (Spanish)

Carmen Thyssen-Bornemisza Collection Catalogue V1 (Spanish)

65.00 € 25.00 €

Art Lesson Exhibition Catalogue

Art Lesson Exhibition Catalogue

30.00 € 28.51 €

Catalogue Museo Thyssen-Bornemisza. Old Painting (English)

Catalogue Museo Thyssen-Bornemisza. Old Painting (English)

80.00 € 25.00 €

Visit online shop

More from the collection

Emile Bernard
Emile Bernard
Women Bathing
1889
Emile Bernard
Emile Bernard
The Cliffs at Le Pouldu
1887
Emile Bernard
Emile Bernard
L'Annonciation
1890
Paul Gauguin
Paul Gauguin
Coming and Going, Martinique
1887
  • Private and/or didactic use
  • Commercial use
Private and/or didactic use
Inside a Shop in Pont-Aven. Interior de una tienda en Pont-Aven, 1887
Inside a Shop in Pont-Aven
Emile Bernard

©

Carmen Thyssen Collection

Terms of Use

The exploitation rights of the images correspond to the Fundación Coleccion Thyssen-Bornemisza, F.S.P. The Fundación authorizes the downloading of high-resolution images from its website for private use, use for educational and research purposes, and non-commercial uses.

Use for educational and research purposes is understood as the non-commercial or advertising use of images in presentations, conferences, school or university work, in classes at regulated education institutions, as well as in academic publications, with a circulation of less than 1,000 copies, provided that it is non-profit.

Non-commercial use is understood as the use of the images in a context where no profit, monetary or commercial, is generated, directly or indirectly.

Any use other than those indicated above will require the prior written authorization of the Fundación.

Any request for educational and research use or for non-commercial use (including academic publications), should be directed by email to the Museum Photo Library through the email address archivo.fotografico@museothyssen.org. This department manages the worldwide distribution of the images of the works of the Thyssen-Bornemisza National Museum and the management of their reproduction rights for those uses.

The user agrees to use the image of the website solely and exclusively for the purposes described above and in accordance with the following terms of use:

Terms of use

  • If the image is used for reproduction, the work must be reproduced in its entirety. The image may not be manipulated, deformed, modified or altered in any way. In particular, no superposition (of images or texts) on the reproduction is allowed.
  • The reproduction of a detail or part of the work may only be made with the prior written authorization of the Fundación. In this case, the credit line must include the following mention: “detail”.
  • Any total or partial reproduction of the images authorized by the Fundación must be accompanied by the following mention: Author's name. Title, Date © Coleccion Carmen Thyssen.
  • The user will send to the Museum Photo Library one (1) free copy of the edition, publication or reproduction to the following address: Archivo Fotografico, Museo Nacional Thyssen-Bornemisza, Paseo del Prado, 8 28014 Madrid, Spain.
Download image
Commercial use
Inside a Shop in Pont-Aven. Interior de una tienda en Pont-Aven, 1887
Inside a Shop in Pont-Aven
Emile Bernard

©

Carmen Thyssen Collection

Terms of Use

The Photo Library of the Museo Nacional Thyssen-Bornemisza offers sale and rental service of photographic material of all the works of the Carmen Thyssen Collection.

To request images or permits for commercial use in academic or research publications, that is, catalogues of other institutions, monographs and other specialised publications, you should contact the Photo Library by email at the e-mail: @email.

To request images or permits for other commercial or advertising uses (general publications, merchandising, exhibitions, audio-visual works, web pages, etc.), you should contact the Museum's Commercial Archive by email at the e-mail: @email.

The Photo Library and the Museum's Commercial Archive manage the worldwide distribution of images of the Museo Thyssen-Bornemisza works, as well as their reproduction rights. The applicable rates are calculated based on the nature and proposed use of the images, as well as the availability of the requested image.

Requests for scans or new photographs will be reviewed on a case-by-case basis. Once approved, an additional fee will apply. Re-photographing a work will require a minimum of six weeks to complete.

Download image
Thyssen-Bornemisza Museo Nacional

Navegación secundaria (EN)

  • #Thyssenmultimedia
  • Press
  • Corporate events
  • Tourism
  • Join our team
  • Newsletter
Instagram
Facebook
X
Youtube
TikTok
iVoox
LinkedIn

The Museo Nacional Thyssen-Bornemisza would like to thanks for the collaboration of:

Fundación Mutua Madrileña Master Card Comunidad de Madrid
©2025 Thyssen-Bornemisza National Museum

Menú al pie (EN)

  • Legal terms and use of images
  • Public tenders
  • Transparency site
  • Accessibility and quality
  • Sustainability & 2030 Agenda
  • Contact
Ministry of Culture España es cultura | Spain is culture. The website promoting Spanish culture Paisaje de la Luz | Paseo del Prado y Buen Retiro. Paisaje de las Artes y las Ciencias
Certificación de Conformidad con el Esquema Nacional de Seguridad. Categoría Media. RD 311/2022