Camille Pissarro

Ludovic-Rodophe Pissarro, Paris (the artist's son)
Sam Salz, New York (acquired from the above)
A gift from the above in 1952

Washington, D.C., Corcoran Gallery, Visionaries and Dreamers, 1956, no. 36

Executed on cream colored laid paper. The sheet is affixed to a mat at upper corners of its verso. There are repaired tears at the top left edge and right edge three inches from top, and a minor loss to extreme lower right edge. Colors are bright and fresh. Overall the work is in good condition.
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Primarily known for his light-filled plein-air landscapes, Camille Pissarro's La Mére de l’artiste au lit marks a radical departure in both style and subject. The quiet intimacy of this watercolor and its subject matter demonstrates a private, deeply personal act of creation.

Depictions of the dead to honor their memory have a long tradition that stretches from the sculpted death masks of Egyptian pharaohs to the wax and plaster impressions of notable figures from the Middle Ages and beyond. Indeed paintings as memorials have precedent in the art of Pissarro’s contemporaries as well. Monet painted his wife after her death (Camille Monet sur son lit de mort, 1879) and Ferdinand Hodler created a haunting series depicting the struggle and death of his lover, Valentine Godé-Darel (see fig. 1). Pissarro similarly documents the final decline at the end of life, but with a candle offering temporary reassurance that his mother's fragile life-light still burns. Capturing the worried look on her face as she sleeps, Pissarro compassionately surrounds her with the lively greens and lilacs found in his tranquil landscapes, meanwhile framing her face with a gentle ray of light from above. The resulting image serves as a poignant, beautiful and private memento of a loving son. 

 

Fig. 1 Ferdinand Hodler, Valentine Godé-Darel on her Deathbed, oil on canvas, 1915, Musée d’art et d’histoire, Geneva