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Lot Essay
To be sold with a photo-certificate from the Wildenstein Institute dated Paris, le 20 décembre 2001.
Between 1878 and 1895, Pissarro produced approximately seventy paintings in fan shapes, ranging from crayon sketches on paper to elaborate gouaches on silk. Fans became hugely popular as the fashion for Japanese objects increased enormously after the Japanese exhibit at the 1867 Exposition Universelle. Further exhibitions during the Exposition Universelle of 1878 and at the Japanese Pavillion on the Rue des Nations in the Champs de Mars ensured a continuing taste for Japanese objects, particularly fans, which were imported by the million, making them fashionable and easily obtainable. Pissarro, along with several of the other leading Impressionist painters such as Degas, Morisot and Forain, seized upon this new vogue. Pissarro in particular was fascinated by the artistic challenge of constructing a pleasing, unified composition within a difficult arc-shaped format with its required emphasis on its two corners.
At the Fourth Groupe d'Artistes Indépendants in 1879, Pissarro included twelve fans amongst the thirty-eight works presented. Other artists such as Degas or Forain also included several fans in the exhibition since, being lower in price and extremely fashionable, they readily found buyers. Indeed, in 1882, when Pissarro was experiencing financial difficulties, Durand-Ruel recommended that Pissarro 'make some small gouache paintings on taffeta and some fans: they sell well and have been very successful' (quoted in L. Venturi, Les archives de l'Impressionnisme, vol. II, Paris, 1939, p. 248).
Couple de Paysans gardant des vaches, environs d'Eragny reflects Pissarro's mastery of this format. The structural device of the fence on the left, balanced by the figures and livestock, lead the viewer into the composition and towards the landscape in the background and the sublimely executed sunset. In fact, the precision of the composition, with its emphasis on the horizontal of the background and the diagonals of the foreground, perfectly complements the format of the work and makes the curvature of the fan an element of the composition in its own right, rather than a limiting factor. Pissarro's accomplished use of the medium and skill at using the format to the enhancement of the composition make this work an outstanding example of the limited series of fans he executed throughout his life.
Many of Pissarro's works in this format are to be found in important collections around the world, including Fermière et dindes of 1885 in the Brooklyn Museum, New York, Hiver, environs de Lower Norwood, Londres in the Springfield Museum of Fine Arts and the celebrated Rameuses de pois of 1890 in the Ashmolean Museum, Oxford.
Between 1878 and 1895, Pissarro produced approximately seventy paintings in fan shapes, ranging from crayon sketches on paper to elaborate gouaches on silk. Fans became hugely popular as the fashion for Japanese objects increased enormously after the Japanese exhibit at the 1867 Exposition Universelle. Further exhibitions during the Exposition Universelle of 1878 and at the Japanese Pavillion on the Rue des Nations in the Champs de Mars ensured a continuing taste for Japanese objects, particularly fans, which were imported by the million, making them fashionable and easily obtainable. Pissarro, along with several of the other leading Impressionist painters such as Degas, Morisot and Forain, seized upon this new vogue. Pissarro in particular was fascinated by the artistic challenge of constructing a pleasing, unified composition within a difficult arc-shaped format with its required emphasis on its two corners.
At the Fourth Groupe d'Artistes Indépendants in 1879, Pissarro included twelve fans amongst the thirty-eight works presented. Other artists such as Degas or Forain also included several fans in the exhibition since, being lower in price and extremely fashionable, they readily found buyers. Indeed, in 1882, when Pissarro was experiencing financial difficulties, Durand-Ruel recommended that Pissarro 'make some small gouache paintings on taffeta and some fans: they sell well and have been very successful' (quoted in L. Venturi, Les archives de l'Impressionnisme, vol. II, Paris, 1939, p. 248).
Couple de Paysans gardant des vaches, environs d'Eragny reflects Pissarro's mastery of this format. The structural device of the fence on the left, balanced by the figures and livestock, lead the viewer into the composition and towards the landscape in the background and the sublimely executed sunset. In fact, the precision of the composition, with its emphasis on the horizontal of the background and the diagonals of the foreground, perfectly complements the format of the work and makes the curvature of the fan an element of the composition in its own right, rather than a limiting factor. Pissarro's accomplished use of the medium and skill at using the format to the enhancement of the composition make this work an outstanding example of the limited series of fans he executed throughout his life.
Many of Pissarro's works in this format are to be found in important collections around the world, including Fermière et dindes of 1885 in the Brooklyn Museum, New York, Hiver, environs de Lower Norwood, Londres in the Springfield Museum of Fine Arts and the celebrated Rameuses de pois of 1890 in the Ashmolean Museum, Oxford.