Camille Pissarro

Durand-Ruel, Paris (acquired from the artist in 1886)

Durand-Ruel, New York (acquired from the above)

Chester Johnson Galleries, Chicago (acquired from the above on December 29, 1930)

Acquired from the above

Paris, 1, rue Laffitte, Huitième Exposition de peinture, 1886, no. 102 (titled Plein soleil)

New York, National Academy of Design, Celebrated Paintings by Great French Masters, 1887, no. 169

Boston, Chase's Gallery, Paintings by the Impressionists of Paris: Monet, Pissarro, Sisley, 1891, no. 10

(possibly) New York, Durand-Ruel Galleries, Paintings by Camille Pissarro, 1903, no. 17

New York, The Armory of the 69th Infantry; Chicago, The Art Institute & Boston, Copley Hall, International Exhibition of Modern Art, 1913, no. 501

Waterbury, Mattatuck Historical Society, 1925

Kansas City, Missouri, Art Institute, 1930

Rodolphe Darzens, La Pléiade, Paris, May 1886, p. 90

Marcel Fouquier, Le XIXe siècle, Paris, May 16, 1886, p. 2

Gustave Geffroy, La Justice, Paris, May 21, 1886

George Auriol, Le Chat noir, Paris, May 22, 1886, p. 2

Ludovic-Rodo Pissarro and Lionello Venturi, Camille Pissarro - Son art, son oeuvre, vol. I, Paris, 1939, no. 699, catalogued p. 179; vol. II, no. 699, illustrated pl. 145

Joachim Pissarro & Claire Durand-Ruel Snollaerts, Pissarro, Catalogue critique des peintures, vol. III, Milan, 2005, no. 830, illustrated p. 546

Good condition. The canvas has been relined with a BEVA adhesive. The colors are fresh, and figures and the landscape are well preserved. Under UV, there is a hairline, vertical restoration at the center of the sky, extending from the top edge of the canvas to the horizon line. No other restoration is visible.
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Included in the eighth and final official exhibition of the Impressionist painters in 1886, Paysannes ramassant des herbes, Eragny, exemplifies the theme for which Pissarro would be best known and also introduces the new neo-Impressionist divisionist style that he would help to pioneer in the years to come.  Titled Plein soleil in that seminal exhibition, the scene depicts fieldworkers in the tall grass of Éragny.  As a caretaker of the land, Pissarro, like his Realist forebearers Courbet and Millet, held a deep respect for rural working class, and his vivid depictions of their activities are often considered tributes to the patriotism at the heart of their work.

Critical reception of the eighth Impressionist exhibition identified a stylistic turning of the tides in the paintings of some of the participants, including those of Pissarro and newcomers Seurat and Signac.  Pissarro's paintings elicited generous praise, particularly for his glorious renderings of agricultural labor.  "Here are fields, real fields," marveled George Auriol in response to Paysannes ramassant des herbes, Eragny.  "Here are people working in the fields!" (reprinted and Pissarro and Snollaerts, op. cit. p. 546).  A more detailed criticism by Marcel Fouquier of the style of the present work was equally glowing:  "Bright Sunshine (the present work) and Meadows at Bazincourt in the Morning (Pissarro & Snollaerts no. 792) are paintings that possess great character and the profound charm of nature and poetry.  The brushwork is remarkable.  M. Pissarro paints with small, distinct, precise touches and subtle and penetrating juxtapositions of pure tones.  His canvases are so dotted that from up close they are like a collection of diversely coloured nail heads, but when viewed from the right distance, a perspective is established, the planes gain depth, and, the sky being handled with a deliberate lightness [of touch], and impression of vast space and an indefinite horizon is produced" (reprinted in ibid., p. 521).

Paysannes ramassant des herbes, Éragny was one of the first of the artist's works to be exhibited in the United States, introducing an American audience to the most current of stylistic transformations occuring in Paris at the time.