The Musée des Beaux-Arts de Brest is the main art museum in the city of Brest, Brittany, France, housing French and Italian old masters as well as more modern art. It and most of the city were destroyed by Allied bombing during the Second World War and the building and its collections both had to be recreated in the post-war period,making it what one author has called "the largest collection [of old masters] to have been formed in France since 1945". The museum building was completed in 1968 and is typical of Brest's functional post-war architecture.

Maurice Paul Jean Asselin was a French painter, watercolourist, printmaker, lithographer, engraver and illustrator, associated with the School of Paris. He is best known for still lifes and nudes. Other recurring themes in his work are motherhood, and the landscapes and seascapes of Brittany. He also worked as a book illustrator, particularly in the 1920s. His personal style was characterised by subdued colours, sensitive brushwork and a strong sense of composition and design.