Camille Pissarro
Paysage sous bois, à l'Hermitage (Pontoise)
1879
Aquatint etching (soft ground, aquatint and drypoint) on light Japan laid paper 21.9 x 26.7 cm (26./26.9 x 35.3/35.6) Framed under glass. Signed 'C. Pissarro' in pencil lower right and titled 'Paysage sous bois a l'Hermitage' in an unknown hand on the left. One of 50 proofs on this paper. - Very rare. Published in: Le Jour et la Nuit, Paris 1879 (artistic contributions by Edgar Degas, Félix Bracquemond, Mary Cassatt, J.-F. Raffaelli, et al). - The sheet minimally irregularly cut. - The outer margin slightly browned with minor light-stain in the mat opening.
This etching - one of the most beautiful in Camille Pissarro's graphic oeuvre, according to Delteil - is very rare among international museums, even in its final state from an edition of 50 impressions (incl. formerly the Musée du Luxembourg, Paris, Fogg Art Museum, Harvard, Cambridge, and the Kupferstichkabinett of the Hamburger Kunsthalle). Using specific techniques for handling the plate, the artist developed this Impressionist image's ever greater concentration and light-filled sense of depth out of the black-and-white effect of vernis mou and aquatint. Compared with the initial states, the final impressions took on a more tonal atmosphere and luminosity.
In 1880 the publication “Le Jour et la nuit” in which the etiching was published in it's last state, appeared in one only and first edition. Initiated by Edgar Degas, it was intended to publish written contributions and artists' prints on a monthly basis. The project grew out of Edgar Degas and Camille Pissarro's experimental collaboration on etching techniques, and it involved other artists, including Mary Cassatt and Félix Bracquemond. In 1880, at the fifth Impressionist exhibition, Pissarro had shown impressions of “Paysage sous bois” in four different states in a violet frame with yellow passepartouts (Joris Karl Huysmans commented critically on this, cf. Anne Röver, exhib. cat., Bremen, op. cit., p. 24). Before 1900, this outstanding example from Pisarro's graphic oeuvre is documented in further early exhibitions by Durand-Ruel in the years 1889, 1890 and by "La Libre Esthétique" in Brussels in January 1895.
Catalogue Raisonné
Shapiro (1973) 6-11, sixth state; Delteil (1923) 16, 5e Etat; each last state
Certificate
We would like to thank Claire Durand-Ruel Snollaerts, Paris, for kindly imparted, confirmatory information.
Provenance
Westphalian private possession
Literature
A.M. Hind, Camille Pissarros Graphische Arbeiten, in: Die Graphischen Künste, year XXXI, Vienna 1908, p. 40; Ludovic Rodo, The etched and lithographed Work of Camille Pissarro, in: The Print Collector's Quarterly, vol. 9, London 1922, pp. 287/288; Barbara S. Shapiro, Camille Pissarro, The Impressionist Printmaker, Museum of Fine Arts Boston, 1973, Kat. Nr. 6-11; Michel Melot, L'Estampe Impressioniste, exhib. cat., Paris 1974, p. 114, cat. no. 235 with illus. (6th state); Eckhard Schaar (ed.), Von Delacroix bis Munch. Künstlergraphik im 19ten Jahrhundert. Exhib. cat. Hamburg/Münster 1977/1978, p. 99, cat. no. 130 with illus.; cf. Janine Bailly-Herzberg (ed.), Correspondance de Camille Pissarro, vol. I, Paris 1980, p. 36, p. 177/178 with annot. 3 (letter from Pissarro to his son Lucien in London, dated 28 Feb. 1883); Barbara Stern Shapiro, Estampes, in: Pissarro 1981,p. 191 ff, no. 156-161 (1st - 6th state); Anne Röver, Camille Pissarro, Radierungen, Lithographien, Monotypien aus deutschen und österreichischen Sammlungen, exhib. cat. Kupferstichkabinett Kunsthalle Bremen, Bremen 1991, p. 24-25 with illus. p. 25; Nicole Minder, Degas & Pissarro, Alchimie d'une Rencontre, exhib. cat. Vevey/Québec/ Jerusalem 1998, p. 72 f., cat. no. 45 with illus.
Exhibitions
Paris 1974 (Bibliothèque Nationale, Cabinet des Estampes), L'Estampe Impressioniste, cat. no. 235; Hamburg 1977/ Münster 1978 (Hamburger Kunsthalle/Westfälisches Landesmuseum für Kunst u. Kulturgeschichte), Von Delacroix bis Munch. Künstlergraphik im 19ten Jahrhundert, cat. no. 130; Bremen 1991 (Kupferstichkabinett Kunsthalle Bremen), Camille Pissarro, Radierungen, Lithographien, Monotypien, cat. no. 5; Vevey/ Québec/ Jerusalem 1998 (Musée Jenisch, Cabinet cantonal des Estampes/Musée du Québec/ The Israel Museum), Degas & Pissarro. Alchimie d'une rencontre, cat. no. 45; Münster 2013 (Kunstmuseum Pablo Picasso), Camille Pissarro. Mit den Augen eines Impressionisten, cat. no. 9 with illus.; Pontoise 2017 (Musée de Pontoise), Camille Pissarro - Impressions gravées, p. 42 with illus.