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CAMILLE PISSARRO
Repos du dimanche dans le bois
.
Etching and drypoint printed in dark,
brownish black on cream laid paper, 1891.
176x289 mm; 7x11
3
/
8
inches, full margins.
Third state (of 3). One of approximately
only 14 lifetime impressions in this state.
Signed, titled and inscribed “2e état no.
10” and “Z. tirée claire” in pencil, lower
margin. A very good impression of this
large, scarce etching.
We have found only 6 other lifetime
impressions at auction in the past 30 years.
By 1884, Pissarro had moved from Pontoise,
close to Paris, to the small village of Éragny
near Gisors, which was midway between
Paris and Rouen, perhaps prompted by a
need to source new subject matter for his
paintings and prints.According to Shapiro,
Pissarro wrote to his son Lucien, also an
artist, after moving to Éragny, noting “I
think you will find attractive things to
paint in Gisors, subjects, moreover, which
should interest the English: churches,
markets, farms, stations, coachmen, shop-
keepers, and the landscape itself.”
A year later he met the artists Georges
Seurat and Paul Signac and, through
them, from 1885-1888, adopted Pointilism.
He exhibited a group of Pointilist paintings,
along with Seurat, Signac and his son
Lucien Pissarro, at the 1886 Impressionist
Exhibition, albeit in a separate room from
the other Impressionist works.
This was a significant and courageous shift
in styles for the artist, then in his mid-50s,
who had seen only limited commercial
success with his Impressionist works.
Nevertheless, Pissarro eventually abandoned
Pointilism and Neo-Impressionism, claiming its system was too artificial and technical, and
reverted to his earlier style.This shift back to his Impressionist roots, as well as the influence
of the Barbizon masters, is evident in this simple etched scene of peasants at rest on a
Sunday afternoon in a warm, sunlit setting.
Pissarro may have had an earlier painting in mind,
Les jeunes filles de paysans
, that he had
made in Pontoise in 1882, when he created this etching. Delteil 99.
[8,000/12,000]