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Description: PROPERTY FROM AN AMERICAN PRIVATE COLLECTION

1830-1903
RUE DE L'HERMITAGE, PONTOISE

measurements
37.7 by 46cm.

alternate measurements
14 7/8 by 18 1/8 in.

Painted in 1879.

signed C. Pissarro and dated 79 (lower left)

oil on canvas

PROVENANCE

Galerie Bernheim-Jeune, Paris
Dr Max Meirowsky, Cologne, Berlin & Geneva (acquired from the above circa 1913-14)
Wildenstein & Co., Inc., New York (acquired from the estate of the above in 1952)
William Appleton Coolidge, Topsfield, Mass. (acquired from the above in 1954)
Massachusetts Institute of Technology, Cambridge, Mass. (a gift from the estate of the above on 25th May 1992; sale: Christie's, New York, 13th November 1996, lot 1)
Purchased at the above sale by the present owner

EXHIBITED

Boston, Museum of Fine Arts (on loan 1992-96)

LITERATURE

John Rewald, Camille Pissarro, New York, 1954, illustrated in colour pl. 24
Meïr Stein, Camille Pissarro, Copenhagen, 1955, illustrated in colour pl. 24
John Rewald, Camille Pissarro, New York, 1963, illustrated in colour p. 115
Leopold Reidemeister, 'L'Ile-de-France et ses peintres', in L'~il, April 1965, illustrated fig. 8
Milton S. Fox, Camille Pissarro, New York, 1966, illustrated
John Rewald, Pissarro, Paris, 1970, no. 25, illustrated in colour
John Rewald, C. Pissarro, Paris, 1974, no. 25, illustrated in colour
Charles Kunstler, Camille Pissarro, Milan, 1974, illustrated p. 77
John Rewald, Camille Pissarro, Paris & New York, 1989, no. 25, illustrated in colour p. 115
Richard R. Brettell, Pissarro and Pontoise: The Painter in a Landscape, New Haven & London, 1990, no. 106, illustrated p. 113 (titled Route à Pontoise)
John Rewald, Camille Pissarro, London, 1991, illustrated in colour p. 89
Peter C. Sutton, The William Appleton Coolidge Collection, Boston, 1995, no. 45, fig. 1, illustrated p. 166
Joachim Pissarro & Claire Durand-Ruel Snollaerts, Pissarro. Catalogue critique des peintures, Paris, 2005, vol. II, no. 592, illustrated in colour p. 401

NOTE

Painted in 1879, the present work depicts an everyday scene from the town of Pontoise, where Pissarro lived from 1866 until 1883. In deciding to move to Pontoise, the artist 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. The building partially visible to the far right of the present composition was Pissarro's family house at 18 rue de l'Hermitage, and further down the street was a house he lived at earlier in the decade.

Jown Rewald wrote about the present work: 'In spite of his fondness for fall and winter landscapes, the glories of bright summer light never lost their attraction for Pissarro or for any of the other Impressionists. For all of them, the sun remained the supreme master, lengthening or shortening shadows, stressing or hiding forms, illuminating or softening colors. This sun-drenched view of a street in Pontoise which, in the distance, reaches the open country and doubtless loses itself in the fields, is typical of the summer scenes that Pissarro liked to paint: here are the small houses with their gardens, trees, soft hills in the background, horse-drawn carts, a peasant woman of the kind that appears in so many of his canvases, and above this pleasant vista, the blue sky of a sunny day. Here is rural calm with a discreet hint of animation, a perfect blending of buildings, vegetation, and a few figures. All this is observed with a loving eye that transforms what may have appeared banal to others into an image of peace and quiet living' (J. Rewald, op. cit., 1963, p. 114).