Visit To The Farm

I generally work whatever jigsaw is given me as my puzzle of the day even if I don't like the subject. Days like today I get lucky and really like the image which sends me on to discover more about it once I've put the jigsaw together.
What I like about this painting: The bucolic atmosphere, the somber coloring, the memories invoked, its impressionism.

Visiting with my older brother Tuesday, we were remembering when Mom and Dad used to milk the cows in the open cow lot. He said it was because the stanchions weren't yet installed in the barn; I remembered as being a once in awhile thing in the summer because it was cooler to milk outside like the woman in the painting, instead of in the barn. And note that the girl is drinking a cup of milk fresh from the cow - warm, just the way my Mom liked it.

My storyteller imagination wants to know the relationship between the well-dressed lady and the dairymaid. Are they mistress-of-the-manor and tenant? Perhaps, but I think they're more than that. I think they are friends; that the younger mother needs and appreciates the kindness and wisdom of the older woman.

When I tried finding the artist by searching the title of the art, the picture did not come up so I searched by a combination of the title on the puzzle and what I could see of the artist's signature. Emile Charles Dameron (1848-1908) is the French artist. The title of the painting is Visiting the Farm.
Once I entered his name and clicked images I spent an hour or more just admiring more of his work.

Like this one of two women and a cow in a woodland landscape. Again I am drawn to the somber colors and the peaceful feeling. Other than his birth and death dates and that he was born and died in Paris, I found very little about the artist.

And then there is this picture. You know what I thought of when I saw this one, don't you?

Someday when I am paging through some heretofore unknown (to me) artist's collection, this picture is going to appear and my mystery will be solved.