Camille Pissarro

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Description

Camille Pissarro
BAIGNEUSES
signed C. Pissarro (lower left)
gouache over pencil on card
22.9 by 16.4cm., 9 by 6 3/8 in.

Provenance

Max and Fanny Steinthal, Berlin
Seized by the Third Reich after their deaths
In the possession of Max and Fanny Steinthal's son-in-law (until 1950)
Impounded by the East German authorities in 1950
Gemäldegalerie, Dresden (by 1950)
Restituted to the heirs of Max and Fanny Steinthal in 2004

Exhibited

Berlin, Jüdisches Museum, 100 Jahre jüdische Kunst aus Berliner Besitz, 1937-1938, no. 87
Berlin, Jüdisches Museum, Max Steinthal - Ein Bankier und seine Bilder, 2004, illustrated in colour in the catalogue

Catalogue Note

Baigneuses depicts the theme of female bathers which Pissarro explored for the first and only time in the 1890s. The present work is related in composition to two recorded gouaches Baigneuses (see L. R. pissarro and L. Venturi, Camille Pissarro, Son art - son œuvre, San Francisco, 1989, vol. II, no. 1482 and 1483) both dated circa 1896.

The energetic brushstrokes and the idyllic setting distinguish the present composition as typical of Pissarro's Eragny period. The artist had moved to Eragny, a small village in Normandy near Gisor, in 1884. The surrounding countryside, devoid of modernised farming and industrial imagery, provided the artist with the perfect setting in which to develop his work. As in the present work, Pissarro frequently portrayed the local people in intimate natural settings.