.jpg?w=1)
Lot Essay
Cette oeuvre sera incluse au prochain catalogue raisonné des dessins de Camille Pissarro actuellement en préparation par Joachim Pissarro.
Closely related to the tempera Les Faneuses of around 1880 (Pissarro and Venturi, no. 1330), this tranquil rural scene depicts a group of four figures, three women and a man, raking hay into tall, conical stacks, of the sort that dotted the bucolic landscape around Camille Pissarro's home at Pontoise. The artist had first treated the subject of hay-making in 1876, during a visit to his friend's Ludovic Piette's farm in Montfoucault (Pissarro and Durand-Ruel Snollaerts, no. 464). Following his move to Eragny in 1884, it became, along with apple-picking, one of his favorite manifestations of the theme of communal rural labor, a key aspect of his utopian vision for the modern countryside.
According to Christopher Lloyd, the rolling hills in the background of the scene are those of Le Valhermeil, a rural hamlet midway between Pontoise and the neighboring town of Auvers. Along with the nearby village of Chaponval, Le Valhermeil was one of Pissarro's favorite places to work in 1879-82, the last three years that he lived at Pontoise. Notably, both Le Valhermeil and Chaponval had been ravaged by arson in 1879, and news of the crime was reported even in Paris. This tragic event may have encouraged Pissarro to turn his attention to the two tiny hamlets, representing not the charred debris described in newspaper accounts but the traditional, pastoral beauty that the fires had threatened to destroy.
Closely related to the tempera Les Faneuses of around 1880 (Pissarro and Venturi, no. 1330), this tranquil rural scene depicts a group of four figures, three women and a man, raking hay into tall, conical stacks, of the sort that dotted the bucolic landscape around Camille Pissarro's home at Pontoise. The artist had first treated the subject of hay-making in 1876, during a visit to his friend's Ludovic Piette's farm in Montfoucault (Pissarro and Durand-Ruel Snollaerts, no. 464). Following his move to Eragny in 1884, it became, along with apple-picking, one of his favorite manifestations of the theme of communal rural labor, a key aspect of his utopian vision for the modern countryside.
According to Christopher Lloyd, the rolling hills in the background of the scene are those of Le Valhermeil, a rural hamlet midway between Pontoise and the neighboring town of Auvers. Along with the nearby village of Chaponval, Le Valhermeil was one of Pissarro's favorite places to work in 1879-82, the last three years that he lived at Pontoise. Notably, both Le Valhermeil and Chaponval had been ravaged by arson in 1879, and news of the crime was reported even in Paris. This tragic event may have encouraged Pissarro to turn his attention to the two tiny hamlets, representing not the charred debris described in newspaper accounts but the traditional, pastoral beauty that the fires had threatened to destroy.