Although Brittany is part of France, it was, for many centuries, a wild and windswept country of Celts, where people preserved their own language, customs and faith.
In the 1830s, however, French artists such as Jean-Baptiste Camille Corot (1796-1875) discovered the area's mysterious landscape, shaped by a restless sea. Others followed, and by the 1870s, painters from as far afield as America (John Singer Sargent, 1856-1925) and even Japan (Seiki Kuroda, 1866-1924) considered it essential to visit Brittany and discover its delights.
The result was a Brittany boom. New railways brought tourists to bathe in the sea and goggle at quaint curiosities. Pictures of women in lace caps, and longhaired sailors in pleated pantaloons, decorated many a Parisian home in the late 19th century.