Interior with a Girl Knitting

Usually working in a small format, Pierre Joseph Toussaint was a painter in the rich traditions of Flemish genre painting. His paintings frequently have an amusing quality in them, often depicting household staff at their chores. In this particular example, which can be dated to the 1870’s, we see an interior scene with a young girl knitting. The artist has used this same interior in a number of other compositions but with different figures within the paintings. The attention to detail that he brings to his work is nicely illustrated here as is the soft light effects that he had a predilection for using.