Camille Pissarro

Private Collection, France
Acquired from the above by the present owner

Executed on cream wove paper, not laid down, hinged to the mount at two points along the outer edge. There are three artist's pinholes to the periphery of the outer edge. There are two 2cm. repaired tears to the right side of the lower edge and a nailhead-sized paper skinning to the inner edge of the fan. Apart from some minor nicks and staining to the edges, possibly caused by the overmount, this work is in good condition. Colours: The paper tone is slightly warmer in the original.
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As early as 1879, in the fourth Impressionist Exhibition, Pissarro exhibited twelve designs for fans. This new direction in his work, attributed partly to the influence of Edgar Degas, can also be placed in the larger context of the japonisme movement, in which many segments of the Parisian avant-garde found inspiration in the Japanese prints and decorative arts that began to be widely circulated in the 1860s.

Christopher Lloyd writes of this body of work: 'For Pissarro the adoption of the fan as an art form came at a critical time, namely the close of the 1870s. To a certain extent the fan may have assisted Pissarro in his search for compositional unity. The emphasis that had to be placed on the two corners of the fan meant that figures were given prominence against the background. Landscapes and horizon lines in the upper half of the fan either have a horizontal emphasis or else echo the curvature of the fan itself. Whilst many of the compositions are reworkings of earlier works, Pissarro also showed considerable originality in this format. He sought different atmospheric effects in compositions of seasonal import, but at the same time did not spurn more 'modern' themes, such as the railway bridge at Pontoise and the port at Rouen' (Christopher Lloyd, Pissarro, London, 1980, p. 235).

The subject of the present work, that of laveuses working in the countryside, relates it to the paintings of Jean-François Millet and Eugène Boudin. While his landscapes depict the natural beauty of the French countyside, Pissarro also chooses to examine the complexity of space and perspective in a manner that was rare among the artists who explored this subject in the past.