View into the Dining Room, Le Bréau 

Walter Gay painted "View into the Dining Room, Le Bréau" with oil on canvas. The artist has used soft brushstrokes to capture the light filtering through the doorway into the dining room. The materiality of the paint itself is evident in the subtle textures and variations of color. There is a real sense of a space captured in time. Gay was known for his paintings of interiors of wealthy homes. Here, he depicts the dining room of Le Bréau, a château outside of Paris, emphasizing the opulence of the setting through his meticulous attention to detail. You can see it in the ornate clock in the foreground and the classical sculpture in the background. This painting can be seen in the context of the artist's own social world, and his attention to the culture of collecting and display of wealth in the late 19th and early 20th centuries. This emphasis on materiality, making, and context challenges the traditional distinctions between fine art and craft.