Camille Pissarro

Galerie Durand-Ruel, Paris (possibly acquired on March 30, 1900)

Galerie Bernheim-Jeune, Paris (acquired from the above on April 9, 1900)

Adolphe Tavernier, Paris (sold: Georges Petit, Paris, March 23, 1903, lot 29)

Jeanne Bonin-Pissarro (daughter of the artist, possibly acquired at the above sale)

Galerie Durand-Ruel, Paris (acquired from the above on November 18, 1921)

M. Oppenheimer (acquired from the above on March 17, 1953)

Galerie Commeter, Hamburg

Sale: Sotheby’s, London, March 27, 1957, lot 106

J.R. Cleveland (acquired at the above sale)

Sale: Sotheby's, London, December 7, 1966, lot 61

Furneaux (acquired at the above sale)

Jacques Spreiregen, Monaco (by 1977)

Sale: Christie's, London, March 30, 1987, lot 9

Private Collection (sold: Christie’s New York, November 14, 1989, lot 35)

Acquired at the above sale

Paris, Château de Bagatelle, Peintres de jardins des XVIIIe et XIXe siècles, 1928, no. 71

London, Marlborough Fine Art, Pissarro in England, 1968, no. 25, illustrated in color in the catalogue

Tokyo, Galerie Nichido, Post-Impressionism, 1970, no. 4

Janine Bailly-Herzberg, Correspondance de Camille Pissarro, 1891-1894, Paris, no. 1786, cited p. 149

Ludovic-Rodo Pissarro & Lionello Venturi, Camille Pissarro, son art, son oeuvre, Paris, 1939, vol. I, no. 1127, catalogued p. 237; vol. II, no. 1127, illustrated pl. 224

Joachim Pissarro & Claire Durand-Ruel Snollaerts, Camille Pissarro, Critical Catalogue of Paintings, Paris, 2005, vol. III, no. 1315, illustrated in color p. 812

The present work is an atmospheric depiction of the Jardin des Tuileries on a misty day as seen from the apartment Pissarro was renting while staying in Paris.  During his previous visit to the capital, the artist wrote in a letter to his son Lucien in December 1898: "We have engaged an apartment at 204 rue de Rivoli, facing the Tuileries, with a superb view of the Garden, the Louvre to the left, in the background the houses on the quais behind the trees, to the right the Dôme des Invalides, the steeples of Ste. Clothilde behind the solid mass of chestnut trees.  It is very beautiful.  I shall paint a fine series" (C. Pissarro, quoted in Pissarro (exhibition catalogue), Hayward Gallery, London, 1980, p. 146).

 

Pleased with his stay at rue de Rivoli, Pissarro returned to Paris and took the same apartment from November 1899 until May 1900.  During this stay in the capital, the artist painted a series of fourteen oils showing the Tuileries Gardens and the Louvre from the window of his residence. In the present work, the greenery of the gardens are seen on an overcast day. Pissarro evidently took joy in depicting the scene throughout the changing seasons; the present work is one of the few oils from this series showing the garden through the haze of a romantic Parisian mist.