Lot 255
  • 255

Camille Pissarro

Estimate
700,000 - 900,000 USD
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Description

  • Camille Pissarro
  • La Maison Rondest et son jardin à l'Hermitage, Pontoise
  • Signed C. Pissarro. and dated 78 (lower right)
  • Oil on canvas
  • 21 5/8 by 25 3/4 in.
  • 54.9 by 65.4 cm

Provenance

Mary Cassatt, New York
Mr. & Mrs. Horace Binney Hare, New York
Wildenstein & Co., New York (acquired by 1944)
Mr. & Mrs. Grover A. Magnin (acquired from the above in 1950 and sold: Parke-Bernet, New York, October 15, 1969, lot 3)
David T. Schiff, New York
Hirschl & Adler, New York (acquired from the above in 1971)
James & Helen K. Copley, La Jolla (acquired from the above in 1971)
Thence by descent

Exhibited

New York, Wildenstein & Co., Camille Pissarro: His Place in Art, 1945, no. 16
Chicago, The Arts Club of Chicago, Paintings by Camille Pissarro, 1946, no. 11
New York, Wildenstein & Co., French and American Nineteenth Century Painting, 1947, no. 20
Toledo, The Toledo Museum of Art, Pissarro, 1949, n.n.
New York, Wildenstein & Co., C. Pissarro, 1965, no. 16, illustrated in the catalogue (dated 1872)

Literature

Richard Guggenheimer, Sight and Insight: A Prediction of New Perceptions in Art, Port Washington, New York, 1945, illustrated p. 119
Jerrold Lanes, "Current and Forthcoming Exhibitons. New York" in The Burlington Magazine, May 1965, p. 275
Joachim Pissarro & Claire Durand-Ruel Snollaerts, Pissarro, Catalogue critique des peintures, vol. II, Paris, 2005, no. 555, illustrated in color p. 380

Condition

This painting is in beautiful condition. The paint layer is cleaned and lightly varnished. It has an old French lining which is stabilizing the paint layer but does not compromise the original texture of the paint. There are no damages, paint losses or abrasions to the paint layer. Under UV light there is one tiny area of retouching at the extreme upper left corner, and a few very small strokes along the extreme upper edge. The work should be hung as is. The above condition report has been provided by Simon Parkes of Simon Parkes Art Conservation, Inc. 502 East 74th St. New York, NY 212-734-3920, simonparkes@msn.com, an independent restorer who is not an employee of Sotheby's.
In response to your inquiry, we are pleased to provide you with a general report of the condition of the property described above. Since we are not professional conservators or restorers, we urge you to consult with a restorer or conservator of your choice who will be better able to provide a detailed, professional report. Prospective buyers should inspect each lot to satisfy themselves as to condition and must understand that any statement made by Sotheby's is merely a subjective qualified opinion.
NOTWITHSTANDING THIS REPORT OR ANY DISCUSSIONS CONCERNING CONDITION OF A LOT, ALL LOTS ARE OFFERED AND SOLD "AS IS" IN ACCORDANCE WITH THE CONDITIONS OF SALE PRINTED IN THE CATALOGUE.

Catalogue Note

While living in Pontoise, Pissarro still travelled frequently to Paris. John Rewald describes the atmosphere at the Café de la Nouvelle-Athènes, which the Impressionist group began to frequent around 1876 and where Pissarro would visit during his Parisian trips: “With books and cigarettes the time passed in agreeable estheticisms at the café: Manet loud, declamatory; Degas sharp, more profound, scornfully sarcastic; Duranty clearheaded, dry, full of repressed disappointment. Pissarro, looking like Abraham—his beard was white and his hair was white and he was bald, though at the time he was not yet fifty—sat listening, approving of their ideas, joining in the conversation quietly. No one was kinder than Pissarro, [George] Moore later remembered. He would always take the trouble to explain to students from the École des Beaux-Arts why their teacher Jules Lefebvre was not a great master of drawing. Pissarro’s innate pedagogical gifts expressed themselves on every occasion with soft insistence and perfect clarity. ‘He was so much a teacher,’ Mary Cassatt later stated, ‘that he could have taught stones how to draw correctly’” (John Rewald, The History of Impressionism, New York, 1976, pp. 405-06).

Painted in 1878, the present work depicts a landscape near 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 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, making it a highly picturesque environment in which to paint en plein air. The town's economy thrived on agriculture as well as industry, offering Pissarro a wide range of subjects, from crowded semi-urban genre scenes and views of roads and factories to farmers working on the fields and isolated landscapes devoid of human presence.

La Maison Rondest et son jardin à l'Hermitage, Pontoise was formerly in the collection of Mary Cassatt, who also acquired other works by Pissarro for her personal collection. More than a decade after he painted the present work Pissarro commented on Cassatt’s prints (while they were exhibiting together at Durand-Ruel), describing her tones as "even, subtle, delicate, without stains on the seams: adorable blues, fresh rose, etc... The result is admirable, as beautiful as Japanese work. And it’s done with printer’s ink” (quoted in Ralph Shikes & Paula Harper, Pissarro, His Life and Work, New York, 1980, pp. 256-58).