Study for the Bagpipe Lesson

This study shows a boy practicing the bagpipe, but for the final version, Henry Ossawa Tanner added a teacher and two more figures. Bagpipe players were common in the French region of Pont-Aven and Concarneau, where Tanner spent his summers in the 1890s. Here, he used bold colors and loose brushwork to capture the scene. Tanner entered a finished version in the annual Paris exhibition, but it was rejected; the Pennsylvania Academy of the Fine Arts, however, accepted it for their yearly show.