CAMILLE PISSARRO | La Mère Jolly raccommodant

Estate of the artist (and sold: Galeries Georges Petit, Paris, December 3, 1928, lot 29)
Gabriel Picard, Paris (acquired at the above sale and until at least 1936)
M Hinderling, Switzerland
Galerie Schmit, Paris (acquired from the above)
Private Collection, United States (acquired from the above in 1971)
Acquavella Gallery, New York 
Mr. & Mrs. Josef Rosensaft, New York (acquired from the above in 1973 and sold: Sotheby Parke Bernet, New York, March 17, 1976, lot 9)
Sir Charles Clore, London (acquired at the above sale)
Alan Clore, London (by descent from the above and sold: Christie's, London, June 27, 1988, lot 79)
Private Collection, New York (acquired at the above sale)
Private Collection, Japan (acquired from the above in 1989)
Private Collection, Japan (acquired circa 2000) 
Sale: Christie's, New York, November 7, 2001, lot 130
Galerie Fabien Boulakia, Paris
Acquired from the above on February 22, 2002

Paris, Galerie Manzi-Joyant, Exposition rétrospective d'oeuvres de Camille Pissarro, 1914, no. 6
Paris, Galerie Marcel Bernheim, Les Premières Époques de Camille Pissarro (1858-84), 1936, no. 16 
Paris, Galerie André Weil, Pissarro, 1950, no. 8, illustrated in the catalogue
Tokyo, Isetan Museum; Osaka, Daimaru Museum; Fukuoka, Mitsukoshi Gallery; Mie, Mie Prefectural Art Museum & Yamaguchi, Yamaguchi Prefectural Museum of Art, Camille Pissarro and the Pissarro Family, 1998, no. 25, illustrated in color in the catalogue

La Renaissance de l'art français, no. 12, Paris, December 1928, illustrated p. 502
Le Figaro artistique, Paris, January 10, 1929, p. 221
Ludovico Rodo Pissarro & Lionello Venturi, Camille Pissarro, Son art, son oeuvre, vol. I, Paris, 1939, no. 271, catalogued p. 118; vol. II, illustrated pl. 54 
Jean Bloch Rosensaft, L'Oeil, Paris, February 1974, p. 55
Janine Bailly-Herzberg, Correspondance de Camille Pissarro, vol. I, Paris, 1980, p. 95 
Joachim Pissarro & Claire Durand-Ruel Snollaerts, Pissarro, Catalogue critique des peintures, vol. II, Paris, 2005, no. 368, illustrated in color p. 281

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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.
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Upon receiving an invitation from his dear friend Ludovic Piette to the rural enclave of Montfoucault, Pissarro embarked upon what would become a three-year investigation of “the true countryside” (Janine Bailly-Herzberg, op. cit., p. 95). Looking to the pastoral landscape of northwestern France, as well as to the work of Millet—whom the artist respected as one of the few serious painters of such scenes—Pissarro found himself gravitating to the peasants and farmhands of the estate (see fig. 1). Works from this time witness maids, sowers, plowmen and other servants diligently at work under cheery skies or within domestic enclaves on the farm, despite his hesitations taking on such a well-mastered subject. In a letter to Duret, Pissarro discusses his progress and misgivings, stating “I haven’t worked badly here. I have been tackling figures and animals. I have several genre pictures. I am rather hesitant about going in for a branch of art in which first-rate artists have so distinguished themselves. It is a very bold thing to do, and I am afraid of making a complete failure of it” (ibid., p. 95). A triumph of composition, structure and volume, La Mère Jolly raccommodant and Pissarro’s other work from his time in Montfoucault mark a turning point for the artist, who previously had not studied the human figure in such depth or with such grace. According to leading scholar Richard R. Brettell, “the paintings of 1874 show ample evidence of a change in both style and iconography. Pissarro’s facture became more dense and brushstrokes broader… His attention turned from distantly viewed landscapes to the concentrated space of the barnyard populated with figures and defined by complex arrangements of form… The sheer physicality of form—its weight, mass and proximity—became Pissarro’s overriding concern in the Montfoucault period and that reality was expressed in a manner matched in the period only by Cézanne” (Richard R. Brettell, Pissarro and Pontoise, London, 1990, pp. 162-64). Hailing from one of the most focused and grounded periods in Pissarro’s oeuvre, this distinguished genre scene offers rarely afforded insight not only into pre-industrialized French life, but also into that of the master painter himself.