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Artist or Maker: CAMILLE PISSARRO (1830-1903)

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Dimensions: 28 3/4 by 36 3/8in. 73 by 92.4cm

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Provenance: Property from the Collection of Helene Rabb Cahners
Durand- Ruel, Paris (acquired from the artist on September 2, 1896)
Durand-Ruel, New York (acquired from the above on May 26, 1897 and until at least 1949)
Sam Salz, New York
Esther and Sidney R. Rabb, Boston (by at least 1965)
By descent from the above

Exhibited
New York, Wildenstein Galleries, Camille Pissarro, 1965, no. 73 (as dating from circa 1899)
Boston, The Museum of Fine Arts, Prized Possessions: European Paintings from Private Collections of Friends of the Museum of Fine Arts, Boston, 1992, no. 113
Boston, The Museum of Fine Arts, 1992- 2002 (on loan)

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Notes: Literature:
Ludovic Rodo Pissarro and Lionello Venturi, Camille Pissarro, son art - son oeuvre, vol. I, Paris, 1939, no. 1072, catalogued p. 230; vol. II, no. 1072, illustrated pl. 215 (as dating from circa 1899)

Pissarro was one of the preeminent landscapists among the Impressionist painters, and the present work is a fine example of his affinity for this genre. Thematically similar to the paintings of Jean-François Millet and the Barbizon painters, his landscapes depict the natural beauty of the French countyside and the laborers who tended to the land. Pissarro, however, chose to examine the complexity of space and perspective in a manner that was rare among the artists who explored this subject in the past. In this painting, the artist carefully constructs the spatial boundaries of the landscape by placing the peasant figure as the composition's focal point and arranging all the other pictorial elements in relation to her. The large haystack, immediately to the rear-left of the figure, and the trees, particularly the impressive one that dominates the foreground, enclose her within the meadow. This emphasis on confined space was important for these pictures of Eragny, as it expressed the character and charm of the small farms of the region.

The artist completed many of his late landscapes in Eragny, a hamlet near Gisors, about two hours by train from Paris, where he had purchased a cottage in the 1880s. Like Pontoise, Eragny was an important market town, and the countryside was divided into small family-run farms that lent a picturesque appearance to the area. Many of Pissarro's paintings of Eragny depict the lush environs near his home, where he often retreated to escape the stress of Paris. In his monograph on the artist, Christoph Becker has written the following of Eragny's influence on Pissarro's art: ''As a refuge for an artist whose reputation was already established, Eragny served Pissarro rather as Giverny served Monet. But while Monet created a world in his house and garden which was soon attracting painters and art dealers alike, in Eragny the family was on its own, and Pissarro used his time there - long stretches between trips to Paris, Rouen and other towns - for tireless uninterrupted work. Many views in paintings from that time show the surrounding field and orchards with the hamlet of Bazincourt on the rise in the distance, or his garden. And there was no season or time of day that Pissarro did not portray, indeed he would impatiently wait for certain atmospheric changes, so that he could set up his easel in the open air and return to work with palette and brush'' (Christoph Becker, et al., Camille Pissarro, Ostfildern, 1999, p. 105).

Although the canvas bears the date 96 in the lower right corner, Ludovic Rodo Pissarro and Lionello Venturi listed this work as dating from circa 1899 in the catalogue raisonné, perhaps basing their assessment on a letter that Pissarro wrote to Lucien in the summer of 1899. ''I have been harnessed to my work since June,'' the artist wrote to his son from Eragny on July, 28, 1899. ''I have begun some motifs in the field, some with figures. I have reason, I think, to congratulate myself on these things. I think they will be interesting'' (quoted in John Rewald, Camille Pissarro, Letters to His Son Lucien, New York, 1943, p. 336).