Camille Pissarro

Durand-Ruel, Paris (acquired on 29th April 1890)
Martin A. Ryerson, Chicago (acquired from the above on 10th August 1892)
Durand-Ruel, New York (acquired from the above on 17th September 1894)
Mr & Mrs Lawrence Rill Schumann, Boston (acquired from the above on 28th October 1949 and until at least 1964)
Hirschl & Adler Galleries, New York
Knoedler, New York (acquired from the above on 6th June 1975) 
Prince Abdureza Pahlavi, Iran (acquired from the above on 6th June 1975)
Private Collection, Europe (acquired in 1980. Sold: Sotheby's, London, 27th June 2000, lot 6)
Purchased at the above sale by the present owner

Waltham, Massachusetts, Rose Art Museum, Brandeis University, Boston Collects Modern Art, 1964, no. 99, illustrated in the catalogue (titled Pontoise and as dating from circa 1877)
New York, Hirschl & Adler Galleries, Retrospective of a Gallery - Twenty Years, 1973, no. 73, illustrated in colour in the catalogue (titled Jardins potagers, Pontoise and as dating from circa 1880)
Palm Beach, Palm Beach Galleries, 19th and 20th Century French and American Paintings, 1974, no. 12, illustrated in colour in the catalogue (titled Jardins potagers, Pontoise and as dating from circa 1880)
Ferrara, Palazzo dei Diamanti, Camille Pissarro, 1998, no. 30, illustrated in colour in the catalogue

Ludovic Rodo Pissarro & Lionello Venturi, Camille Pissarro, son art - son oeuvre, Paris, 1939, vol. I, no. 514, catalogued p. 153; vol. II, no. 514, illustrated pl. 106 (titled Jardins potagers, Pontoise and as dating from circa 1880)
Joachim Pissarro, Camille Pissarro, London, 1993, no. 115, illustrated in colour p. 119 (titled Kitchen Gardens, Pontoise)
Joachim Pissarro & Claire Durand-Ruel Snollaerts, Pissarro. Catalogue critique des peintures, Paris, 2005, vol. II, no. 644, illustrated in colour p. 430

The canvas is lined. There is no evidence of retouching under ultra-violet light. This work is in very good coondition. Colours: In comparison with the printed catalogue illustration, the colours are overall richer and the green tones are much more pronounced in the original.
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NOTWITHSTANDING THIS REPORT OR ANY DISCUSSIONS CONCERNING A LOT, ALL LOTS ARE OFFERED AND SOLD AS IS" IN ACCORDANCE WITH THE CONDITIONS OF BUSINESS PRINTED IN THE SALE CATALOGUE."

Painted in 1881, the present work depicts a landscape near the town of Pontoise, where Pissarro and his family lived from 1866 until 1883. The region offered him a variety of subjects to paint, and his work at this time alternated mainly between depictions of the busy market town of Pontoise, and L'Hermitage (fig. 1), a rural district on its outskirts, which is the subject of Le Jardin de Maubuisson, Pontoise. Executed in quick brushstrokes of complementary colours, this rich, shimmering landscape shows the artist at the height of his Impressionist style. As Joachim Pissarro observed: 'During his years in Pontoise, Pissarro was deeply involved with the Impressionist group and was seen not only as a committed Impressionist artist until at least 1882, but also as an ardent defender of the group's function as an alternative to the Salons. In fact, he created the legal structure of the Impressionist group by establishing the only legal document defining its purpose and aim. He was the only artist to exhibit in all eight Impressionist exhibitions' (J. Pissarro, op. cit., 1993, p. 90).

 

The foreground here is dominated by the vegetation of the Jardin de Maubuisson, a cluster of kitchen gardens at L'Hermitage, with two figures going about their everyday activities. Houses on the rue du Haut-de-l'Hermitage, with their characteristic rooftops, are visible in the background. Pissarro did not have to go far in search of subjects to paint; he found a constant source of inspiration in nature in the vicinity of his house, and took joy in depicting the familiar landscape in different seasons and times of day (fig. 2). In deciding to move to Pontoise, the artist was partly guided by a desire to separate himself from the influence of his predecessors, the established French landscape painters, and to depict an environment previously scarcely recorded by other masters. Located some twenty-five miles northwest of Paris, Pontoise was built on a hilltop, with the river Oise passing through it, elements which made it a highly picturesque environment in which to paint en plein-air. The town's economy included agriculture as well as industry, and offered Pissarro a wide range of subjects, from crowded semi-urban genre scenes, views of roads and factories, to farmers working on the fields and isolated landscapes devoid of human presence.

 

Joachim Pissarro wrote about the motifs that characterised Pissarro's Pontoise pictures: 'These endless combinations of contrasts and variable forces lend themselves to a thematic three-part opposition – intrinsic to the suburban world – between town, country, and their limits, or the intermediary formations that bind them together: the fringe, the villages nearby, the paths that lead to the town, the river, the kitchen gardens – all forms of transitions between field and town [...] Tensions of this type – rural/urban/suburban; nature/architecture/path; fields/path/building(s); city/river/bridge – are absolutely central to Pissarro's output in Pontoise, and clearly represent the focal points of his grasp of the antinomies inherent in suburban spaces. Out of these, Pissarro composed a poetical-pictorial ensemble with resounding evocative power. There emerged several possibilities: he may be seen at times creating an equilibrium between architecture and nature; the jardins potagers (kitchen gardens) offer a privileged vantage point from which to study such contrasts, as seen in Potager et arbres en fleurs, printemps, Pontoise [...] and a motif also studied by Cézanne [fig. 3] and studied again a few years later by Pissarro in Kitchen Gardens, Pontoise [the present work] (ibid., pp. 114-115).

 

In August 1872 Paul Cézanne moved to Pontoise, where he joined Pissarro, and soon afterwards settled in the neighbouring town of Auvers-sur-Oise. During his stay in the area with his wife Hortense and their son Paul, Cézanne frequently walked to Pontoise where he painted alongside Pissarro, often depicting the same views (figs. 2 & 3). It was under Pissarro's influence and guidance that he painted from nature, paying considerable attention to rendering the effects of light on the landscape and houses. This mutual influence and collaboration, nurtured at Pontoise, would prove to be a relationship pivotal to the development of Impressionism.