Camille Pissarro

Lot Description Camille Pissarro (1830-1903) Louveciennes stamped with initials 'C.P.' (Lugt 613a; lower right) oil on canvas 17 x 11 7/8 in. (43.2 x 30.2 cm.) Painted circa 1870 Provenance Estate of the artist. Ludovic-Rodolphe Pissarro, Paris (by descent from the above, 1904). M. Flavian, Paris. M. Knoedler & Co., Inc., New York (acquired from the above, January 1962). Adeline and Caroline Wing, New York (acquired from the above, October 1962). Catherine Gaede, Palm Beach. Trosby Galleries, Palm Beach. Private collection, Illinois (acquired from the above, 1971); sale, Christie's, New York, 4 November 2004, lot 262. Acquired at the above sale by the present owner. Pre-Lot Text PROPERTY FROM AN AMERICAN COLLECTOR Literature L.-R. Pissarro and L. Venturi, Camille Pissarro, son art--son oeuvre, Paris, 1939, vol. I, p. 93, no. 101 (illustrated, vol. II, pl. 20). J. Pissarro and C. Durand-Ruel Snollaerts, Pissarro, Catalogue critique des peintures, Paris, 2005, vol. II, p. 146, no. 167 (illustrated in color). View Lot Notes > Louveciennes, a charming village located ten miles (17 km.) west of Paris, in the lush Seine valley near Versailles and the Forest of Marly, is often described as the "cradle of Impressionism." Louveciennes and its surrounding area attracted a number of artists who often painted its environs. Claude Monet and Pierre-Auguste Renoir were painting in the area when Pissarro arrived there in 1869. Alfred Sisley would join them two years later. Pissarro settled his family in Louveciennes between Spring 1869 and August 1872, with an interlude first in Montfoucault and then in London where he was forced to take refuge during the 1870-1871 Franco-Prussian War. Pissarro sought a new tonality in his work during the years he spent in Louveciennes. He created a more direct and honest depiction of the view before him, painting en plein air in order to capture the true impression of the world he observed. All four of these artists began to show an increasing interest in light, color and atmosphere as they were related to the times of the day and the changing seasons. Pissarro described himself at this time as feeling the elation of reaching a peak of discovery. He wrote to his son Lucien in April 1895, "I remember that, although I was full of ardor, I didn't conceive, even at forty, the deeper side of the movement we followed instinctively. It was in the air!" (quoted in J. Rewald, ed., Camille Pissarro, Letters to his son Lucien, New York, 1943, p. 265). The critic Théodore Duret commented on Pissarro's work from Louveciennes: "In certain ways Pissarro is a realist [yet he] is not a realist to the extreme point where, as with some other artists, he sees nothing in nature but its real and external aspect, and remains oblivious to nature's soul and its intimate dimension. On the contrary, he endows his slightest canvases with a feeling of life" (quoted in J. Pissarro, Camille Pissarro, New York, 1993, p. 58).

Lot Description Camille Pissarro (1830-1903) Maisons sur un coteau, hiver, environs de Louveciennes signed and dated 'C. Pissarro 1872' (lower right) oil on canvas 12¾ x 18 1/8 in. (32.6 x 46 cm.) Painted in 1872 Provenance Félix-François Depeaux, Rouen. Galerie Bernheim-Jeune et Cie., Paris. Galerie Durand-Ruel et Cie., Paris (acquired from the above, 14 March 1924). The Lefevre Gallery (Alex. Reid & Lefevre, Ltd.), London (acquired from the above, 14 January 1937). Edward Le Bas, C.B.E., R.A., London (acquired from the above, 30 September 1937); Estate sale, Christie's, London, 28 November 1972, lot 12. M. Knoedler & Co., Inc., New York (acquired at the above sale). Felicity Samuel Gallery, London (acquired from the above, 1974). Private collection, United States; sale, Christie's, New York, 15 May 1990, lot 3. Anon. (acquired at the above sale); sale, Christie's, New York, 11 November 1997, lot 121. Acquired at the above sale by the present owner. Pre-Lot Text PROPERTY OF AN ESTATE Literature Menorah, October 1930. "Pissarro and Sisley Return to London" in Art News, vol. XXXV, no. 20, February 1939, p. 12 (illustrated). L.R. Pissarro and L. Venturi, Camille Pissarro, son art--son oeuvre, Paris, 1939, vol. I, p. 100, no. 150 (illustrated, vol. II, pl. 31; titled Printemps à Pontoise). G. Jedlicka, Pissarro, Bern, 1950, no. 7 (illustrated; titled Printemps à Pontoise). T. Natanson, Pissarro, Lausanne, 1950, no. 7 (illustrated; titled Printemps à Pontoise). J. Pissarro and C. Durand-Ruel Snollaerts, Pissarro: Catalogue critique des peintures, Paris, 2005, vol. II, p. 185, no. 223 (illustrated in color). Exhibited Paris, Galerie Durand-Ruel et Cie., Tableaux par Camille Pissarro, February-March 1928, no. 4. London, M. Knoedler & Co., Inc., Paintings by Sisley and Pissarro, July 1934, no. 17 (titled Environs de Pontoise). London, The Lefevre Gallery (Alex. Reid & Lefevre, Ltd.), Pissarro and Sisley, January 1937, no. 5 (titled Environs de Pontoise). Glasgow, The McLellan Galleries, French Art of the 19th and 20th Centuries, April 1937, no. 42 (titled Environs de Pontoise). London, The Lefevre Gallery (Alex. Reid & Lefevre, Ltd.), The 19th Century French Masters, July-August 1937, no. 28 (titled Environs de Pontoise). Montreal, W. Scott & Sons, Paintings by French Masters of the Nineteenth and Twentieth Centuries, October 1937, no. 37. London, The Leicester Galleries, Three Generations of Pissarro: Camille, Lucien, Orovida, June 1943, no. 24. London, Wildenstein & Co., Ltd., Constable to Cézanne, December 1944, no. 30 (titled Prés de Pontoise). London, Royal Academy of Arts Diploma Gallery, A Painter's Collection: An Exhibition of Paintings, Drawings and Sculpture from the Collection of Edward Le Bas, RA, March-April 1963, no. 128 (titled Environs de Pontoise). London, Arthur Tooth & Sons, Ltd., Recent Acquisitions XXI, November-December 1966, no. 10 (illustrated; titled Printemps à Pontoise). New York, The Jewish Museum, Camille Pissarro: Impressions of City and Country, September 2007-February 2008, p. 78 (illustrated in color, p. 37, pl. 7). View Lot Notes > In his catalogue raisonné of Pissarro's work, the artist's son Ludovic Rodo titled this delightful rural landscape Printemps à Pontoise (op. cit., p. 100). More recently, however, Joachim Pissarro has noted that the same group of houses appears at slightly closer range in an autumn scene from Louveciennes that bears the date 1869 (Pissarro and Durand-Ruel Snollaerts, no. 137), indicating that the present view must have been painted at Louveciennes as well, before Pissarro left for Pontoise in April 1872. Although the trees are still bare, all signs of the winter freeze have dissipated. The path in the foreground is rendered in touches of pale green and yellow, suggesting a new growth of young grass; the earth of the garden plot is a damp and fertile brownish-mauve; and the sky is a limpid blue, with none of the pallor of winter. Moreover, the figure in the foreground, his cerulean smock echoing the color of the sky above, appears to be breaking ground for sowing, a clear sign of impending spring. The painting should therefore be placed in February or March 1872, in the last weeks that Pissarro spent at Louveciennes--the town that saw the emergence of his characteristically Impressionist manner. The painting depicts two clusters of modest village houses, set at the top of a gentle rise in the land. Rather than painting them from the main street, Pissarro has set up his easel on a grassy path to the rear of the houses, which afforded him a view of the adjoining kitchen garden, enclosed by a rustic wooden fence. The two groups of houses are arranged in a screen across the middle ground, with only the plot of land that separates them giving access into depth. Likewise, the path runs parallel to the picture plane for almost the full length of the canvas before turning at a right angle into the distance, enclosing the row of houses protectively. The two women at the right, their backs turned to the viewer, have just passed the tall tree that articulates the bend in the path and are approaching the screen of trees that effectively marks out the boundary between near and far. The carefully controlled spatial recession of the painting and the strict geometry of the cubic houses are offset by Pissarro's delicate, trembling facture and the effervescence of the landscape's natural shapes: the graceful, spreading tree branches, the delicately rolling hills, the cottony cumulus clouds. Christopher Lloyd and Anne Distel have written: "The artist retains a firmly controlled geometric structure as the framework for his compositions, but he employs a lighter touch in his brushwork and a brighter palette, both of which show the influence of Monet, whose technique of freely applying broken, separate patches of pure pigment Pissarro approached closely at this time. The paintings dating from the opening years of the 1870s may, like those of Monet and Renoir, with good reason be described as the most purely Impressionist in Pissarro's entire oeuvre" (Pissarro, exh. cat., Hayward Gallery, London, 1980, p. 79). The first owner of the present painting was Félix-François Depeaux, whom Distel has described (along with the Havemeyers) as one of the most important "second generation" collectors of Impressionism (Impressionism: The First Collectors, New York, 1989, p. 29). In 1909, Depeaux made a bequest of fifty-three paintings to the Musée des Beaux-Arts de Rouen, including works by Pissarro, Sisley, and Monet. This remains today one of the largest and most significant collections of Impressionist painting in France outside of the Musée d'Orsay.

LOT 189 CAMILLE PISSARRO 1831 - 1903 SENTE DES POUILLEUX, À POINTOISE, GRANDE PLANCHE (DELTEIL 32) Etching and drypoint, 1880, the first state (of two), signed in pencil, titled and inscribed 'no 4' and 'pointe sèche', from the edition of 10, on laid paper with an armorial watermark, framed 271 by 220 mm 10 3/4 by 8 3/4 in sheet 402 by 328 mm 15 7/8 by 12 7/8 in

Camille Pissarro (1830-1903) Vue de Rouen (Cours-la-Reine) (Delteil 50) etching, 1884, on watermarked J.Whatman laid paper, with the artist's brown monogram stamp (L. 613f), numbered 17/50, the full sheet with deckle edges on two sides, pale time-staining around the image, two areas of stray printing ink in the lower margin, otherwise in good condition P. 150 x 198 mm., S. 465 x 287 mm.

Lot Description Camille Pissarro (FRENCH, 1830-1903) Jeanne (recto and verso) signed with initials 'C.P.' (lower right) ink and pencil on paper 5½ x 3½ in. (14 x 8.9 cm.) Drawn circa 1867. Provenance with Lillian Heidenberg Gallery, New York. Saleroom Notice Please note Dr. Joachim Pissarro will include this drawing in the forthcoming Catalogue Raisonné of Drawings by Camille Pissarro. Please note the correct title of this drawing is Jeanne (recto); Minette (verso). Pre-Lot Text PROPERTY FROM A PRIVATE COLLECTOR View Lot Notes › Dr. Joachim Pissarro will include this work in his forthcoming Catalogue Raisonné of Drawings by Camille Pissarro.