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Lot Essay
This work will be included in the forthcoming Camille Pissarro catalogue critique of pastels and gouaches, currently being prepared under the sponsorship of the Wildenstein Institute.
Claire Durand-Ruel Snollaerts has confirmed that in her opinion the work is authentic.
Pissarro and his family sailed to England in December 1870 to escape the turmoil of the Franco-Prussian War. There they rented a small house in Upper Norwood. Referring to an oil painting with the same subject and date as the present gouache, Joachim Pissarro and Claire Durand-Ruel Snollaerts wrote, "Though Pissarro refers to it as the 'Westow Hill' church, this is in fact the all-saints church on Beulah Hill at Norwood. Designed by the architect James Savage, it was built in 1829 at the request of the inhabitants of Norwood, who had nowhere to worship locally. The steeple and spire were added in 1841. The small building on the left with the steep pediment, also designed by Savage and completed in 1838, was a schoolhouse until 1968. Painted on a particularly cold day in the dead of winter, this view was probably completed in the artist’s studio on Westow Hill, which explains why it was mistakenly identified as the 'Church on Westow Hill' in a notebook belonging to the artist found by Ludovic-Rodo Pissarro" (op. cit., pp. 160-161).
Claire Durand-Ruel Snollaerts has confirmed that in her opinion the work is authentic.
Pissarro and his family sailed to England in December 1870 to escape the turmoil of the Franco-Prussian War. There they rented a small house in Upper Norwood. Referring to an oil painting with the same subject and date as the present gouache, Joachim Pissarro and Claire Durand-Ruel Snollaerts wrote, "Though Pissarro refers to it as the 'Westow Hill' church, this is in fact the all-saints church on Beulah Hill at Norwood. Designed by the architect James Savage, it was built in 1829 at the request of the inhabitants of Norwood, who had nowhere to worship locally. The steeple and spire were added in 1841. The small building on the left with the steep pediment, also designed by Savage and completed in 1838, was a schoolhouse until 1968. Painted on a particularly cold day in the dead of winter, this view was probably completed in the artist’s studio on Westow Hill, which explains why it was mistakenly identified as the 'Church on Westow Hill' in a notebook belonging to the artist found by Ludovic-Rodo Pissarro" (op. cit., pp. 160-161).