Camille Pissarro

(possibly) Durand-Ruel, Paris (on loan from the artist between April and July 12, 1883)

Galerie Georges Petit, Paris

Meyer Goodfriend, New York (acquired from the above and sold: American Art Association, New York, January 4 and 5, 1923, lot 90) 

Gaston Kahn, Paris

Acquired by the grandparents of the present owner in July 1926

Cologne, Wallraf-Richartz-Museum, Französische Kunst des 19. und 20. Jahrhunderts, 1953

Essen, Museum Folkwang, Villa Hügel, Werke der französischen Malerei und Graphik des 19. Jahrhunderts, 1954, no. 75

The stone bridge crossing the Viosne river was one of the remaining symbols of pre-industrialization in the Pontoise area when Pissarro painted it in 1883.  The banks of the Viosne had become the site of several factories over the last decades of the 19th century, and Pissarro took enormous interest in depicting this region as it was on the verge of complete transformation.  For the present canvas he chose a spot on the Viosne in the village of Osny,  near Pontoise and a few miles northwest of Paris.   Pissarro must have known that his subject was loaded with significance, and the idyllic beauty of this scene is evident in the present work. The stone arches of the bridge are striking in contrast with the more modern suspension bridges that are often depicted in the works of the other Impressionists.  The most notable examples appear in the cityscapes of Pissarro's colleague, Gustave Caillebotte, whose pictures of the iron bridges of Paris were enormously popular at the Impressionist group exhibitions.  Time-tested structures like the Viosne bridge were considered obsolete in the face of more contemporary feats of engineering, but Pissarro recognized the importance of these structures as enduring symbols of French rural culture.   

While Pissarro was working in Osny in 1883, he was joined by the young Paul Gauguin, who, like Cézanne, enjoyed painting alongside the older artist.  He wrote letters to his son Lucien about the progress of his paintings during these months.  Earlier in the year Durand-Ruel had staged an exhibition of his work, and he tells Lucien that he received numerous compliments from his contemporaries on his recent landscapes.  He writes, "Degas... was happy to see my work becoming more and more pure.  The etcher Bracquemond, a pupil of Ingres, said -- possibly he meant what he said -- that my work shows increasing strength.  I will calmly tread the path I have taken, and try to do my best" (John Rewald, ed., Camille Pissarro, Letters to his son Lucien, New York, 1943, p. 30).