Fridge magnet featuring Pas Mèche (Nothing Doing) by Jules Bastien-Lepage, from the National Galleries of Scotland Collection.
The title of this painting is an abbreviation of the French slang: 'Il n'y a pas meche' meaning 'There's nothing doing'. It depicts a boy in raggedy clothes looking directly to front in a relaxed manner. He is holding a whip and also has a horn slung on his back which suggest that he was a barge boy who would have controlled the horses pulling the barge and alerted the lockmasters of its imminent arrival.
French artist Jules Batien-Lepage, influenced by realist painters, focused his works in rural people using an earthy tonal style on his paintings that inspired many British painters in late nineteenth-century, like the Glasgow Boys.
