卡米耶·畢沙羅

Julie Pissarro (wife of the artist)

Georges Manzana-Pissarro (by descent from the above in 1921)

Galeries Georges Petit, Paris

Christian-Otto Zieseniss  (probably acquired from the above on 29th July 1922)

Joachim Pissarro & Claire Durand-Ruel Snollaerts, Pissarro, Catalogue critique des peintures, vol. III, Paris, 2005,  no. 1189, illustrated in color p. 745

Original canvas. Under ultra-violet light, there are two spots of old retouches on the extreme upper right corner and two scattered strokes along the left edge of the canvas. Otherwise fine, work is in very good condition.
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This sweeping panorama depicts a meadow near Bazincourt at Thierceville, a hamlet in northern Normandy.  Pissarro gives equal proportion in this composition to the rolling hills of the meadow and the open expanse of sky, with the cloud masses above echoing the shape of the haystacks in the middle-distance.  The shepherd and flock in the center right are as much a part of the landscape's ornament as the trees and field brush, as it seems Pissarro's concentration here is not so much on the merits of agricultural labor than on the majesty of his own open-air experience.

At the time he painted this work in the late 1890s, Pissarro's professional afflilation and cooperation with the members of the original group of Impressionist painters had  ended.  This is not to say, however, that the activity of his former collaborators had not caught his attention.  Pissarro had seen Monet's haystack series in the early 1890s and had been struck by the calming visual impact these forms had upon him when he saw them in the flesh.  It can be assumed that Pissarro was mindful of Monet's achievement when he painted the present composition.  The haystacks also enhance the undulating appearance of Pissarro's landscape, and the soothing experience of looking at this visual rhythm and flow calls to mind Pissarro's observations about his colleague's earlier pictures. 

This painting belonged to the artist's wife Julie and was kept in the Pissarro family until it was sold to the family of the present owner in the 1920's.  The scene depicted here is only one of two views of Thierceville that Pissarro ever completed, and it was most liked painted upon his return from a visit to Lucian in London in 1897.