Camille Pissarro

Ernest May, Paris
Durand-Ruel, Paris (acquired from the above on 20th May 1882)
Catholina Lambert, Paterson, New Jersey (acquired from the above on 25th April 1888; his sale: American Art Association, New York, 21st - 24th February 1916, lot 112)
Durand-Ruel, New York (purchased at the above sale)
Conrad H. Lester, California (acquired from the above on 3rd November 1943)
Sam Salz, New York (sale: Sotheby's, New York, 9th November 1955, lot 77)
Maribel G. Blum, Chicago
Bequeathed by the above to the present owner in 1986

New York, Durand-Ruel Galleries, Paintings - Camille Pissarro, 1936, no. 3

The Art News, 14th March 1936, p. 8
Ludovic-Rodo Pissarro & Lionello Venturi, Camille Pissarro: son art, son œuvre, Paris, 1939, no. 381, illustrated n.p.
Annual report, The Art Institute pf Chicago, 1985-86, p. 71
Richard R. Brettell, Pissarro and Pontoise, the Painter in the Landscape, New Haven, 1990, illustrated p. 176
Joachim Pissarro & Claire Durand-Ruel Snollaerts, Pissarro: catalogue critique des peintures, Paris, 2005, vol. II, no. 484, illustrated in colour p. 343

The canvas is lined. UV examination reveals some scattered lines of retouching along the upper edge, and the upper parts of the left and right edges due to frame rubbing. There are a few further scattered spots, the most prominent of which are a line above the left hand figure approx. 1cm, and a spot approx. 0.5cm wide beneath the tree. This work is in overall good condition.
"In response to your inquiry, we are pleased to provide you with a general report of the condition of the property described above. Since we are not professional conservators or restorers, we urge you to consult with a restorer or conservator of your choice who will be better able to provide a detailed, professional report. Prospective buyers should inspect each lot to satisfy themselves as to condition and must understand that any statement made by Sotheby's is merely a subjective, qualified opinion. Prospective buyers should also refer to any Important Notices regarding this sale, which are printed in the Sale Catalogue.
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 1877, Terre labourée en hiver, avec un homme portant un fagot depicts a landscape near the town of Pontoise, where Pissarro lived with his family from 1866 until 1883. Executed in quick gestural strokes of soft pastel colours, this luminous, wintery landscape shows the artist at the height of his Impressionist style. In deciding to move to Pontoise, Pissarro 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.

Pontoise offered Pissarro many opportunities to depict rural labour and the harvest, in particular. In his seminal book, Pissarro and Pontoise, Richard Brettell relates the present work directly to one of the artist’s most important paintings on the theme: Gelée blanche, ancienne route d’Ennery, Pontoise (fig. 1). In representing figures in nature, Pissarro’s interest lay not so much in documenting a specific scene, but in depicting a vision of colour and form that included the harmonious presence of peasants and rural life. In the present work, Pissarro depicts a man carrying fagots on his back up a hillside path towards a central leafless tree under which his companion waits, shoulders hunched against the wind; although they are relatively small in scale, the figures are placed at the focal point of the composition, where the sweeping horizon meets the cloud-dotted sky. They are locked into the landscape by association and alignment with natural form; they are equally natural, equally indigenous. As Joachim Pissarro has written about Pissarro's depictions of rural life, 'Pissarro's figures [....] do not purport to convey an exact account of what female and male peasants actually looked like in northern France during the last two decades of the nineteenth century. While they are not allegories, neither are they sociological documents. It is from this difficulty, which is both essential and highly characteristic of Pissarro's figure paintings—i.e., the fact that they are resistant to conveying any message and to being 'read' as sociological or anthropological witnesses of the raw facts—that manifold interpretations of Camille Pissarro's work have arisen' (Joachim Pissarro, Camille Pissarro, New York, 1993, p. 157).

A sumptuously painted, sophisticated work, Terre labourée en hiver, avec un homme portant un fagot has a remarkably prestigious history. Bequeathed to the Art Institute of Chicago by Maribel Blum in 1986 and now presented for sale to benefit the acquisition fund, the present work was originally acquired directly from the artist by one of Pissarro’s earliest patrons, Ernest May, shortly after its completion. Later acquired from May by Paul Durand-Ruel, it then entered the collection of the East Coast textile magnate Catholina Lambert (1834-1923). Lambert built a palatial estate, known as Bella Vista or Lambert Castle, for his vast art collection in Patterson, New Jersey, but later lost much of his fortune and was ultimately compelled to sell his collection at auction in 1916 to pay off his debts.