Camille Pissarro

Mrs Alfred Besnard & Mr Jean-Félix Besnard, Montmorency (circa 1955)

Private Collection, Switerland (acquired before 1997)

Private Collection (acquired from the above in 2002)

Private Collection, Paris (acquired from the above in 2008)

Dieppe, Musée de Dieppe, Camille Pissarro, 1955, no. 15

Paris, Galerie Odermatt-Cazeau, Maîtres des XIX et XXe siècles, 1988, no. 7, illustrated in color in the catalogue

Ludovic Rodo Pissarro & Lionel Venturi, Pissarro, Son art - Son oeuvre, catalogue raisonné de l'oeuvre, Paris, 1939, no. 954, illustrated p.

Joachim Pissarro & Claire Durand-Ruel Snollaerts, Pissarro, Catalogue critique des peintures, vol. III, Paris, 2005, no. 1121, illustrated p. 708

Pissarro made his first trip to Rouen in 1883 and was captivated by the city. He returned there in 1896 staying at the Hôtel de Paris between January and early April, where he produced his first substantial, systematic series of cityscapes. "They are characterised by an intensity and rapidity of execution and a broad handling that single them out from the rest of the artist’s serial works. Given the more exploratory nature of the 1893 Paris series, the 1896 group can, moreover, be regarded as Pissarro’s first major urban series" (J. Pissarro, The Impressionist and the City, Pissarro’s Series Paintings, Dallas Museum of Art and travelling, 1993, p. 4).

The present work depicts the Pont Boieldieu, built in 1885, two years after Pissarro’s preliminary group of Rouen views. Describing the scene from his hotel bedroom in 1896, Pissarro had written to his son Lucien of a motif "which should be the despair of poor Mourey; just conceive the new section of Saint Sauveur right opposite my window, with the Gare d’Orléans always new and shining, and a mass of chimneys from the gigantic to the diminutive with all their smoke. In the foreground, boats on the water, to the left of the station, the worker’s quarters which extend along the quays up to the iron bridge, the bridge Boieldieu, you should see all this in the morning when the light is misty and delicate. Well now, that fool Mourey is a vulgarian to think that such a scene is banal and commonplace. It is as beautiful as Venice, my dear, it has an extraordinary character and it is truly beautiful! It is art; if I consult my sensations, I find there is not only this motif, there are marvels on every side… I would rather start from a real scene like this than begin with hypocritical sentiments…" ( Letter of 2^nd October 1896, J. Bailly-Herzberg, Correspondence de Camille Pissarro, Paris, 1989, vol. IV, p. 266)