In 1887, Pissarro produced only ten paintings and very few gouaches, of which this is perhaps the most important. Deeply influenced by the younger Neo-Impressionists Seurat and Signac, he adopted--and adapted--their divisionist technique, which was painstakingly slow in execution. Tiny stroke by tiny stroke, the artist built up the facture on the picture plane.

The few works Pissarro did produce in 1887, however, are among his most striking and brilliant. Very similar to a painting on the same theme, La récolte des foins, Eragny, 1887 (sold at Christie's, London, Nov. 28, 1994, lot 13 for 1,013,500) this vista of the pea harvest shows the artist at the height of his inventiveness, distilling the events contained in the scene into a jewel-like visual lyric, at once perfectly true in its lengthening shadows to the reality of the event, but rendering it sublime.