Young Peasant Girls Resting in the Fields near Pontoise

1882

Camille Pissarro

Artist, French, born St. Thomas, Virgin Islands, 1830 - 1903

We look slightly down onto two girls or young women with light skin sitting close to us in a green, grassy field in this square landscape painting. At the bottom center of the composition, the closest girl has her back to us and wears a blue and white striped shirt over a long skirt painted with a blend of muted red and yellow strokes. A blue apron covers most of the front of her legs, and at least one black shoe emerges from the bottom hem, resting in the grass. Her brown hair is pulled up and covered by a red and white-checked cap. She looks toward her companion to our right, who turns her head over her left shoulder, her body facing our left in profile. The second girl has dark blond hair covered with a yellow kerchief speckled with daubs of dark red. She wears a peanut-brown shirt and skirt, and her legs are also mostly covered in a blue apron. The field is bordered by a line of slender tree trunks on the left and tall, dense hedges on the right. A light brown cow and a white cow stand in the field a short distance away. The grass is painted with tightly packed strokes of celery, pine, and kelly green with flecks of goldenrod yellow. Farther in the distance, a narrow band of silvery water enters from the left and runs across the canvas. Another field lies beyond it with a cluster of low buildings in the far distance on the right side. The artist signed and dated the lower right corner, “C. Pissarro 1882.”

Media Options

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On View

West Building Main Floor, Gallery 88


Artwork overview


Artwork history & notes

Provenance

Paul Mellon [1907-1999], Upperville, Virginia, by 1966;[1] bequest 1999 to NGA, with life interest to his wife, Rachel Lambert Mellon [1910-2014].
[1] Lent to French Paintings from the Collections of Mr. and Mrs. Paul Mellon and Mrs. Mellon Bruce, National Gallery of Art, Washington, D.C., 1966: no. 28.

Associated Names

Exhibition History

1966

  • French Paintings from the Collections of Mr. and Mrs. Paul Mellon and Mrs. Mellon Bruce_, National Gallery of Art, Washington, D.C.,1966, no. 28, repro.

Bibliography

2014

  • Kelly, Franklin. "A Lasting Legacy: The Completion of an Unparalleled Gift." National Gallery of Art Bulletin no. 51 (Fall 2014): 17, repro.

Inscriptions

lower right: C. Pissarro / 1882

Wikidata ID

Q20189575


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