Camille PISSARRO (1830-1903) Lot n° 22

Camille PISSARRO (1830-1903) Hilly landscape, surroundings of Montmorency. Oil on canvas, signed lower left. Durand-Ruel label "2395, Durand-Ruel, Paris-New-York, Pissarro, Environs de Montmorency", partially faded. Label "N°19745, Pissarro, Landscape". Traces of old labels not legible. Dimensions : H. 61,5 cm, W. 50,2 cm. Frame consolidated, canvas re-stamped, re-varnished, some jumps on the edges, slight scratches, slight cracks. Certificate of authenticity: certificate of Mme Claire Durand-Ruel from 2013. Work reproduced in the critical catalogue of the artist's paintings, Paris, Skira/Wildenstein Institute Publications, Vol. 2, n°73, p.79, ill. p. Considered the "father of Impressionism", Camille Pissarro is above all an admirer and a great mediator of the beauty of nature. Hilly landscape near Montmorency, painted around 1860, is a striking testimony to the painter's singular genius and the genesis of Impressionism. A painting that was a precursor to Impressionism Settling in France in 1855 after a youth in the West Indies and a three-year stay in Venezuela, Camille Pissarro turned to landscapes and rural themes, of which he would become a master. Alongside the Barbizon painters, foremost among them Camille Corot, Pissarro experimented with painting from the ground up. Our painting, Hilly Landscape, near Montmorency, reflects the group's realistic and dreamlike perception of nature. Through a triptych composition, where vibrant green foliage opens onto a subtle and radiant blue sky, the artist delivers a strikingly tranquil landscape highlighted by peaceful human figures. A rare view of the Montmorency area In addition to the poetry it conveys - and which prefigures the painter's impressionist landscapes - this painting is one of the rare views of Montmorency and its surroundings, alongside the Paysage de Montmorency (1858) kept at the Musée d'Orsay.