This is a painting by French artist Charles Bertrand d'Entraygues (1850 -1929), "School boys playing with spinning tops in the classroom" (I could not find the French name):
I love it because of all the detail. You can see how the pegtop is wrapped with the string (exactly the same as we do), how the top is held for the overhand throw (tip pointing to the inside, like we do), the two tops lying on the circle as targets, and a top spinning on the hand. If you look at the high-resolution image of the painting, the string that the boy with the top on the hand is holding has a little loop on one end: my guess it goes around the finger. The fact that he is holding the string at the middle with the left hand tells me that he did not boomerang the top but that he scooped it from the ground. The string hanging from the boy wrapping the top also might have a loop an the end of the string. The pegtops have narrow and high crowns. The tip of the top that is been thrown might have a neck but, unfortunately, it's not very clear.
I could not find the exact date it was made. D'entraygues painted many children scenes during his career. He apparently used a lot his family, including his children on the paintings. Could these be the three top spinning boys?
In that case, the painting would be from the early 1880s.
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Topic: French painting with lots of detail (Read 606 times)