Camille Pissarro

Galerie Durand-Ruel, Paris (acquired from the artist on 24th February 1892)
Anne-Marie Lefebure, Paris (née Durand-Ruel; acquired from the above in 1942)
Galerie Durand-Ruel, Paris (acquired from the above on 16th January 1962)
Sam Salz, New York (acquired from the above on 29th January 1963)
Acquired from the above by the family of the present owner in 1966

Paris, Galerie Durand-Ruel, Camille Pissarro, 1892, no. 5
Montreal, F. Scott & Sons, Paintings lent by Durand-Ruel, 1892
The Hague, Haagsche Kunstkring, Tentoonstelling van schildeijen en beeldhouwwerken van werken leden der 1ste afdeeling en van werken van Claude Monet, Renoir, Sisley en C. Pissarro, 1893, no. 53
Berlin, Paul Cassirer, Pissarro, 1904, no. 10
Paris, Galerie Durand-Ruel, C. Pissarro, 1962, no. 12

Ernest-Marie d’Hervilly, ‘Les on-dit’, in Le Rappel, 3rd February 1892, mentioned p. 2
Charles Saunier, ‘L’Art Nouveau. I, Camille Pissarro’, in La Revue indépendante, April 1892, mentioned p. 33
'The Impressionists’, in Witness, 7th April 1892
Ludovic-Rodo Pissarro & Lionello Venturi, Camille Pissarro, son art - son œuvre, Paris, 1939, vol. I, no. 281, catalogued p. 119; vol. II, no. 281, illustrated pl. 56
Janine Bailly-Herzberg (ed.), Correspondance de Camille Pissarro, Paris, 1988, vol. III, letter no. 745, mentioned p. 189
Joachim Pissarro & Claire Durand-Ruel Snollaerts, Pissarro, Critical Catalogue of Paintings, Paris,  2005, vol. II, no. 385, illustrated p. 290

The canvas is lined. There is no evidence of retouching under ultra-violet light. This work is in very good condition. Colours: Overall fairly accurate in the printed catalogue illustration, although slightly fresher in the original.
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The subject of winter landscapes fascinated Pissarro throughout his career, and Effet de neige à Montfoucault is a vivid early painting of this important theme. The artist’s evocative palette of glacial tones, inflected with blues and greens, captures the intense cold and unusual light conditions predicated by a heavy snowfall on the isolated village of Montfoucault. In the present work a peasant woman and her child are pictured slowly making their way about the snow covered farmyard. The preoccupation with snowy landscapes would extend to several of the Impressionist painters, including Claude Monet and Alfred Sisley who dedicated large parts of their œuvre to impressive winter scenes. The challenge of capturing the effects of snow upon the French landscape provided a powerful lure for all of them, but unique to Pissarro's output was a dedication to the depiction of man’s relationship with nature in all weathers.

Effet de neige à Montfoucault is one of several snowscapes Pissarro painted at Montfoucault during the winter of 1874-75. The present work depicts the outbuildings of the small farm where the artist and his family stayed with Ludovic Piette, a fellow painter. Discussing Pissarro’s working process in Montfoucault, Katherine Rothkopf writes: ‘The isolation in Montfoucault was a great inspiration for Pissarro’s winter paintings. He did not paint with his friend and colleague Piette as he had done with Monet and Cézanne, but instead chose to work alone. During the winter of 1874 in Montfoucault. Pissarro produced at least six effet de neige compositions and at least three more during the winter of 1875, a time when his interest in painting winter views was at an apex. Unlike his snowscapes of Pontoise, these works do have ‘rustic’ images, including farm animals. Pissarro chose to feature aspects of the rough, hard conditions of winter life in this isolated rural village. His color scheme became limited, with shades of gray, black, gold, sienna, and slate blue’ (K. Rothkopf, Impressionists in Winter: Effets de Neige (exhibition catalogue), The Phillips Collection, Washington, D.C., 1999, p. 47).