NARRATOR:
It is autumn on this small, tree-lined street outside of Paris. Leaves tinged with gold and orange are silhouetted against an overcast sky. The dark, rhythmic lines of the tree trunks create a strong vertical thrust, while branches at the upper right seem lively and free. On this cold fall day leaves rustle, and the women wrap themselves in heavy shawls.
This small canvas of the Boulevard des Fosses, or boulevard of the moats, was painted by Camille Pissarro in the town of Pontoise, in the fall of 1872. The street had been built only ten years earlier, over moats that had fortified the city in the Middle Ages. Large houses and fashionable pedestrians suggest a well-to-do neighborhood.
Born in St. Thomas in the West Indies to merchant parents, Pissarro came to France in 1855 to study painting. He lived in Pontoise, on and off, for nearly twenty years, painting along its quiet suburban streets, its busy markets, and the banks of the Oise River.
The Boulevard des Fossés, Pontoise
1872
Camille Pissarro (French, 1830-1903)
On View
Pissarro moved back to the town of Pontoise, twenty miles Northwest of Paris, in August, 1872. He had spent 1870–71—a politically turbulent year in France—abroad in London. There he had encountered the paintings of John Constable, an early-nineteenth-century landscapist, whose sensitive portrayals of clouds likely inspired the overcast sky in this picture. Pissarro’s first autumn back in Pontoise was among the most productive periods of his career; he turned out twenty-seven views of the town and its inhabitants. Here, with remarkable concision, he evoked a newly-built boulevard, its sidewalks lined with young trees, its gutters filled with fallen leaves.
Details
- Artist Name: Camille Pissarro (French, 1830-1903)
- Title: The Boulevard des Fossés, Pontoise
- Date: 1872
- Medium: Oil on canvas
- Dimensions: 18-1/4 x 21-7/8 in. (46.4 x 55.6 cm)
- Credit Line: Norton Simon Art Foundation, Gift of Mr. Norton Simon
- Accession Number: M.1975.20.P
- Copyright: © Norton Simon Art Foundation
Object Information
[Durand-Ruel, Paris, deposited by Durand-Ruel with Jules Féder, his banker at the Banque de l’Union Général, which went bankrupt in 1882; Durand-Ruel recovered painting on 22 June 1892 from; Picq, who was overseeing the bankruptcy proceedings. Sold 3 October 1940 to];
[Sam Salz, New York, sold 22 November 1940 to];
[Paul Rosenberg, sold 8 May 1942 to];
[Durand-Ruel, New York, sold 1 February 1946 to];
Jakob M. Goldschmidt (d. 1955), Berlin (until 1933) and New York (1933-55) (sale, London, Sotheby’s, 28 November 1956, lot 126, sold for $23,800 jointly to);
[Thos. Agnew & Sons, London, and A. Tooth & Sons, London, consigned November 1956 to];
[M. Knoedler & Co., New York, stock no. CA4952, sold, as stock no. A6533,13 March 1957 to];
Norton Simon, gift 1975 to;
Norton Simon Art Foundation.
[Sam Salz, New York, sold 22 November 1940 to];
[Paul Rosenberg, sold 8 May 1942 to];
[Durand-Ruel, New York, sold 1 February 1946 to];
Jakob M. Goldschmidt (d. 1955), Berlin (until 1933) and New York (1933-55) (sale, London, Sotheby’s, 28 November 1956, lot 126, sold for $23,800 jointly to);
[Thos. Agnew & Sons, London, and A. Tooth & Sons, London, consigned November 1956 to];
[M. Knoedler & Co., New York, stock no. CA4952, sold, as stock no. A6533,13 March 1957 to];
Norton Simon, gift 1975 to;
Norton Simon Art Foundation.
[on loan]
- Toronto, Art Gallery of Ontario, 1981-02-10 to 1981-08-28
Collection of Mr. Jakob Goldschmidt, Under the Auspices of The Greenwich House Music School Committee
- New York, Residence of Jakob Goldschmidt, 1953-11 to 1953-11
Reinstallation of South Wing
- Norton Simon Museum, 1993-10-07 to 1995-08-13
Special Exhibition for the College Art Association (Mr. and Mrs. Norton Simon Collection)
- Los Angeles County Museum of Art, 1965-01-18 to 1965-04-16
- Pissarro, Ludovic Rodo; and Lionello Venturi, Camille Pissarro: son art-son oeuvre, vol. I, no. 171; vol II, pl. 35
- Cogniat, Raymond, Pissarro,
- Goerges-Michel, Michel, Les Grandes Epoques de la Peinture "Moderne" de Delacroix a nos Jours, 1945, following p. 68
- Masterpieces from the Norton Simon Museum, 1989, p. 136
- Joachim Pissarro, Claire Durand-Ruel, Catalogue raisonne de Camille Pissarro - peintures, 2005, Plate 277 p. 220
- Brettell, Richard R. and Stephen F. Eisenman, Nineteenth-Century Art in the Norton Simon Museum, volume 1, 2006,
- Campbell, Sara, Collector Without Walls: Norton Simon and His Hunt for the Best, 2010, cat. 47 p. 250
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