View of Le Pont St Bénézet, Avignon, France

George Barret the elder RA (Dublin 1732 - Paddington 1784) . Oil painting on canvas, View of Le Pont St. Bénézet, Avignon, France by George Barret the elder RA (Dublin 1732 - Paddington 1784), signed bottom left. River with arches of stone bridge left, various figures and boat in foreground. On back of picture 'Given to me by Colonel Hon Thomas Vasey in S.Y. Saffire RYS at Cannes, March 1935. Fairhaven'. 'Barret (V.) 31. Le Pont Saint-Beneset (Vaucluse). Peintre sur toile. Signee en bas et a gauche'. Label on frame 'Le Pont Saint Beneset, Avignon, G. Barret, 1774-1842'. According to legend the bridge was built by a shepherd boy in 1177-85, who was then canonized, and about which the famous rhyme 'sur le pont d'Avignon' was written. Avignon: [the Blue Guide, France, Ian Robertson, 1994, pp.738-9] Pont St. Bénézet. Only 4 arches of the original 22 remain of the original bridge built in 1177-88 by the shepherd boy Bénézet (according to legend), who was then canonized. The rest were destroyed by flood and war, and the last attempt to replace them was abandoned in 1680. The 16th century Chapel St. Nicholas survives, standing on a 13th century. base. The famous rhyme about dancing ‘sur le pont d’ Avignon’ should probably read as ‘sous le pont’, i.e. on the Ile de la Barthelasse, lying between two arms of the Rhone, and once spanned by the bridge. Anglesey Abbey, Cambridgeshire (Accredited Museum)