Lot Essay
Camille Pissarro's Le Tribunal de Pontoise, Place Saint-Jean dates from a period of intense upheaval in Pissarro's life. He had returned to Louveciennes from England in the summer of 1871, following the end of the Franco-Prussian War. There, he found his house and studio in a state of utter dereliction. Louveciennes, only thirty miles from Paris, had been occupied by the Prussians during the Paris siege.
A year later, in 1872, Pissarro and his family moved from Louveciennes to Pontoise. For the next decade, Pissarro stayed in Pontoise, assiduously studying a complex and diverse array of motifs that he discovered and exploited in the local surroundings. The present painting represents the court house of Pontoise. In front of it, a group of citizens are discussing the latest court case or perhaps awaiting deliberation from the tribunal. Painted at the height of his Impressionist style, Richard R. Bretell has written the following on "The Classic Pontoise Period":
It is probable that, when the history of Impressionism
is rewritten in another hundred years, Pissarro's
paintings of 1872 and 1873 will be considered his
masterpieces, as great, in their way, as Corot's work
from his first trips to Italy or as Monet's landscapes
from the 1860s. Pissarro's style in the classic
Pontoise period is derived from the combined example
of Monet and Turner, grafted to his by then familiar
version of Corot's style. The small-scale patches
of the facture undoubtedly come from Monet. The
palette, whose earth tones were enlivened by various
purples, yellows, pinks, and pale oranges, relates
to the late landscape palette of Turner, whose work
stands behind so many of the watercolors and paintings
of the London period. Yet both these influences are
subsumed by the overwhelmingly Corotesque quality of
Pissarro's art. His composition, his intimacy of
observation, his love of small-scale value gradations
observed in complicated arrangements of form, and his
insistently geometrical composition owe their most
profound debt to Corot, the greatest French landscape
painter of the nineteenth century. (R. Brettell,
Pissarro and Pontoise, London, 1990, p. 151)
This painting is currently included in the Pissarro exhibition at the Jewish Museum, and it must be returned to the museum promptly following the auction, where it will remain until July 16, 1995.
A year later, in 1872, Pissarro and his family moved from Louveciennes to Pontoise. For the next decade, Pissarro stayed in Pontoise, assiduously studying a complex and diverse array of motifs that he discovered and exploited in the local surroundings. The present painting represents the court house of Pontoise. In front of it, a group of citizens are discussing the latest court case or perhaps awaiting deliberation from the tribunal. Painted at the height of his Impressionist style, Richard R. Bretell has written the following on "The Classic Pontoise Period":
It is probable that, when the history of Impressionism
is rewritten in another hundred years, Pissarro's
paintings of 1872 and 1873 will be considered his
masterpieces, as great, in their way, as Corot's work
from his first trips to Italy or as Monet's landscapes
from the 1860s. Pissarro's style in the classic
Pontoise period is derived from the combined example
of Monet and Turner, grafted to his by then familiar
version of Corot's style. The small-scale patches
of the facture undoubtedly come from Monet. The
palette, whose earth tones were enlivened by various
purples, yellows, pinks, and pale oranges, relates
to the late landscape palette of Turner, whose work
stands behind so many of the watercolors and paintings
of the London period. Yet both these influences are
subsumed by the overwhelmingly Corotesque quality of
Pissarro's art. His composition, his intimacy of
observation, his love of small-scale value gradations
observed in complicated arrangements of form, and his
insistently geometrical composition owe their most
profound debt to Corot, the greatest French landscape
painter of the nineteenth century. (R. Brettell,
Pissarro and Pontoise, London, 1990, p. 151)
This painting is currently included in the Pissarro exhibition at the Jewish Museum, and it must be returned to the museum promptly following the auction, where it will remain until July 16, 1995.