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A woman bends double to tend a garden that stretches before us in front of two houses in this horizontal landscape painting. The scene is painted with short, visible brushstrokes with a palette dominated by spring, pine, and celery green and earthy tan, peanut, and chestnut brown. Touches of canary yellow, pale pink, coral, and ruby red suggest sunflowers, roses, and other flowers. The woman wears a long, steel-gray skirt and a long-sleeved olive-green shirt. Her brown hair is bound up, and her face and hands, indicated with only a few short swipes of paint, are pale peach. She stoops over a light green patch to our right of center near a bundle of sticks or a group of tall dried stems, to our right. Leafy greens have been planted in rows to our left. Across from us, beyond the cultivated rows, masses of flowers grow in a band that nearly spans the width of the composition. Beyond, a gray stone house with a dark gray roof and a second brick red roof rise above the plants and trees. The pale blue sky above is dotted with cotton-white clouds. The artist signed and dated the work with dark paint in the lower left corner: “C. Pissarro 1989.”

Camille Pissarro

The Artist's Garden at Eragny, 1898

West Building, Ground Floor - Gallery 39

Medium

oil on canvas

Dimensions

overall: 73.4 x 92.1 cm (28 7/8 x 36 1/4 in.)

framed: 94 x 113.4 x 10.2 cm (37 x 44 5/8 x 4 in.)

Credit Line

Ailsa Mellon Bruce Collection

Accession Number

1970.17.54

Artists / Makers

Camille Pissarro (artist) French, born St. Thomas, Virgin Islands, 1830 - 1903

Image Use

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Inscription

lower left: C. Pissarro.1898

Provenance

By inheritance from the artist [1830-1903] to his wife, Mme Camille [Julie] Pissarro. (Galerie Manzi-Joyant, Paris). (Paul Rosenberg et Cie., Paris). Mme Louise Gillou, Paris, by 1939; her daughter, Mme. René Fenwick, Paris;[1] (her estate sale, Palais Galliera, 3 December 1964, no. 22). (César de Hauke, Geneva); sold 1964 to (M. Knoedler & Co., London and New York); sold 16 February 1965 to Ailsa Mellon Bruce [1901-1969], New York;[2] bequest 1970 to NGA.

[1] Published by Venturi in 1939 as from the Gillou collection. Mme Fenwick's name and her relationship to Mme Gillou are according to the M. Knoedler and Co. précis in NGA curatorial files.

[2] Dated receipt in NGA curatorial files.

Associated Names

Bruce, Ailsa Mellon, Mrs.
Fenwick, René
Galerie Manzi-Joyant
Gillou, Louise
Hauke, César Mange de
Knoedler & Company, M.
Palais Galliera
Rosenberg & Co., Paul P.

Exhibition History

1966: French Paintings from the Collections of Mr. and Mrs. Paul Mellon and Mrs. Mellon Bruce, National Gallery of Art, Washington, 1966, no. 34, repro

1980: Homage to Camille Pissarro: The Last Years, 1890-1903, The Dixon Gallery and Gardens, Memphis, 1980, no. 14, repro.

1989: Impressionisti della National Gallery of Art di Washington, Ala Napoleonica e Museo Correr, Venice; Palazzo Reale, Milan, 1989, unnumbered catalogue, repro.

1999: Around Impressionism: French Paintings from the National Gallery of Art, Los Angeles County Museum of Art, 1999, no cat.

1999: Masterpieces from the National Gallery of Art, Washington, Kyoto Municipal Museum of Art; Tokyo Metropolitan Art Museum, 1999, no. 47, repro.

2007: Cézanne in Florence. Two collectors and the 1910 Exhibition of Impressionism., Palazzo Strozzi, Florence, 2007, unnumbered catalogue, repro.

2010: Impressionist Gardens, National Gallery of Scotland, Edinburgh, 2010-2011, no. 62, repro.

2015: Painting the Modern Garden: Monet to Matisse, Cleveland Museum of Art; Royal Academy of Arts, London, 2015-2016, no. 33, repro.

2017: Pissarro à Éragny, l’anarchie et la nature, Musée du Luxembourg, Paris, 2017.

Bibliography

1939: Pissarro, Ludovic and Lionello Venturi. Camille Pissarro, son art, son oeuvre. 2 vols. Paris, 1939:1:228, no. 1057, as Le Jardin D'Éragny; 2:pl. 212.

1966: Goldwater, Robert. "The Glory that was France." Art News 65 (March 1966): 45, repro.

1975: European Paintings: An Illustrated Summary Catalogue. National Gallery of Art, Washington, 1975: 272, repro.

1984: Walker, John. National Gallery of Art, Washington. Rev. ed. New York, 1984: 511, no. 762, color repro.

1985: European Paintings: An Illustrated Catalogue. National Gallery of Art, Washington, 1985: 315, repro.

1993: Reid, Martin. Pissarro. London, 1993:136, repro.

2005: Pissarro, Joachim and Claire Durand-Ruel Snollaerts, Pissarro: Critical Catalogue of the Paintings, 3 vols., Milan, Paris and New York, 2005: III:no. 1215, repro.