Lot Essay
In the late 1870s and early 1880s, Pissarro based himself in Pontoise. This allowed him to paint the surrounding villages such as Auvers-sur-Oise, six kilometers away, a country retreat for wealthy Parisian businessmen. Auvers also drew other artists during this period, notably Czanne and Gauguin, who worked there alongside Pissarro. Sente et coteaux d'Auvers displays the agitated brushwork typical of Pissarro's work of the period, a technique that had a recognizable influence on the paintings produced by Gauguin in Pontoise, Osny, Auver-sur-Oise and Rouen. Pissarro's response to the landscape is now increasingly more abstract than during the 1870s, the topography of the region being less interesting than the interplay of a wide range of tones within a limited palette.