Camille Pissarro

Durand-Ruel, Paris (acquired from the artist on March 17, 1893)

Baron Louis de Chollet, Fribourg (acquired from the above)

Sam Salz, New York (acquired from the above)

Theodore H. Cummings, Beverly Hills (acquired from the above in May 1964 and sold: Sotheby’s, London, April 26, 1967, lot 11)

Private Collection (acquired at the above sale)

Dr. Jerome J. S. Cole, New York (by 1975)

Geraldine Cole, New York (by descent from the above)

Wildenstein Gallery, New York (acquired from the above in 1979)

Dr. and Mrs. George A. Dean, Birmingham (acquired from the above in 1979)

Private Collection, Florida (until 1990)

Private Collection

Anita Friedman Fine Art Ltd., New York

Acquired from the above on January 22, 1992

Paris, Galerie Durand-Ruel, Oeuvres récentes de Camille Pissarro, 1893, no. 23

Grand Rapids, Art Gallery, French Art, 1949

Memphis, The Dixon Gallery and Gardens, Homage to Camille Pissarro: The Last Years (1890-1903), 1980, no. 1

New York, Hirschl & Adler Galleries, A Selection of Nineteenth and Twentieth Century Works, 1990, no. 7

Ludovic-Rodo Pissarro and Lionello Venturi, Camille Pissarro, son art – son oeuvre, vol. I, Paris, 1939, no. 782, p. 191; vol. II, illustrated p. 161

Martha Ward, Pissarro, Neo-Impressionism, and the Spaces of the Avant-Garde, Chicago, 1996, fig. 11.7, pp. 254-255

Joachim Pissarro and Claire Durand-Ruel Snollaerts, Pissarro, Catalogue critique des peintures, Paris, 2005, vol. III, no. 927, illustrated p. 609

In 1892 and 1893, Pissarro completed a series of pictures of the flooding of the fields near his home in Éragny.  The present painting depicts this dramatic event one morning in the neighboring town of Bazincourt.   Pissarro captures the rich visual effects of a sunny but flooded landscape in those early hours of the day by juxtaposing the warm hues of the grass in the foreground with the bright reflection of the sunlight on the water.

Vue de Bazincourt, inondation, effet du matin is a wonderful example of some of the Neo-Impressionist techniques that Pissarro was incorporating into his paintings at the end of the 1890s.  In Pissarro’s opinion, Impressionism was already over in 1883, and it was at this time that he embraced the Neo-Impressionist style, under the influence of Seurat and Signac.  Although he adopted the Pointillist technique with an assured manner, he did not apply it with the dogmatic vigor of Seurat. As in the present work, he used the Pointillist style to create vibrant color contrasts and to explore the effect of light on water and on the surrounding landscape, rather than subjecting the scene to a more formulaic approach. Despite taking on this new technique, Pissarro’s interest in nuances of light and atmospheric changes remained an important legacy of his earlier Impressionist style:  "At this time he was particularly fascinated by the transitions between the seasons and the times of day, and his palette included endless pastel shades reminiscent of the iridescent hues of a piece of mother-of-pearl" (Christoph Becker, "Camille Pissarro, Impressionist Artist," Camille Pissarro, Stuttgart, 1999, p. 110).