3-008-460 - The Print Collector/Heritage Images

"Brittany Peasants fording a Stream", by Frederick Goodall, A.R.A., 1862. Engraving of a painting. 'Where and when since the days of Charles II. could any hat and style of wearing the hair be found more picturesque than this peasant's? Look, also, at the elegant dishabille of his belted and braided coat; the manly breadth given to his chest by the plain, high-throated vest, with its prim white collar...The coiffure of the woman is like the Roman panno, a pleasing auxiliary to the scenery, enlivening it with its snowy whiteness...Squalid and dirty as are the Bréton peasants in their habitations, rude and unskilful as they are in their agriculture, they have many of the primitive virtues of truth and loyalty, together with that love of finery common to the rural population of Spain, Italy, Switzerland, and those regions of Germany to which modern innovation, or, as we term it, civilisation, has not yet penetrated'. From "Illustrated London News", 1862.