Camille Pissarro

Acquired by Christian Otto Zieseniss before 1929

Joachim Pissarro & Claire Durand-Ruel Snollaerts, Pissarro, Catalogue critique des peintures, vol. III, Paris, 2005, no. 1369, illustrated p. 841

Original canvas. Surface retains a rich and textured impasto. Under ultra-violet light no inpainting is apparent. This painting is in excellent condition.
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The glistening reflection of poplar trees in the Loing river is the subject of Pissarro's canvas from 1901.  The scene here was painted on the left bank of the river on the edge of a meadow known as "le pré Margaron," where he was staying at the home of his son Georges.  Moret had long been the domain of Pissarro's Impressionist contemporary Alfred Sisley until his death in 1899.  Indeed, the town's medieval architecture had inspired several of Sisley's last compositions, including several views of the multi-arched bridge traversing the river.  Pissarro's approach to the site was much more focused on the elements of the natural world, and the canvases he painted on his visits to Moret in 1901 and 1902 were devoted to depicting the splendor of the landscape.  The slender poplars, towering over the buildings in the distance and the wooden laundry house along the bank, occupy the majority of the canvas and punctuate the sky with the vibrant colors of the foliage in bloom.  Even in his final years Pissarro was enthralled with the beauty of the French countryside, and Bords du Loing à Moret presents an elegant medley of the elements at their most spectacular.

Pissarro's painting campaign along the Loing in 1901 was begun at the urging of Georges, who had moved to a generously-sized house alongside the river in 1899. "There's a little raised garden on a rampart right on the edge of the river with a lovely view of poplar trees reflected in the Loing. Without even leaving the garden we're smack in the midst of wonderful motifs," Georges wrote to his father in October 1899.   But it would take some additional prompting in the spring of 1901, with the promise of physical assistance and timely opportunity to paint "trees in bloom" that ultimately convinved him. "I reached Moret without any trouble," Pissarro wrote to his wife Julie upon arrival, "the weather is splendid."   This richly-painted landscape is among the seven canvases that he would complete that spring.  While five of these were consigned to Bernheim-Jeune, the present work has been largely unknown for most of its history, having been in the collection of the Zieseniss family for over eighty years.