Brief Report

This picture was previously owned by Dr. George Viau (1855-1939), a Parisian dentist who was one of the earliest collectors of Impressionist paintings [Pissarro/Durand-Ruel Snollaerts 2005, p. 373, cat. no. 541]. This is also confirmed by a sticker verso (figs 2, 8). For the depiction of the orchard, Pissarro chose a twill-weave canvas pre-primed in a warm light-grey (fig. 7)[cf. Pissarro, WRM 3119]. As in another, much later depiction of an orchard by Pissarro in the Wallraf collection, what we have here is a canvas in the standard F10 size, but turned through 90 degrees [cf. Pissarro, WRM Dep. 850]. The ground can be seen under raking light and in the X-ray photograph to have conspicuous scratches, which must have been present before the picture was painted, but whose cause is unknown. The painting was executed, without any discernible compositional planning in the form of underdrawing or underpainting, in short, often shallowly diagonal brush-strokes, the colours often only blending when placed on the canvas (figs 10, 11). Mostly Pissarro applied the paints wet-in-wet and fairly impasto, but in the region of the sky or on the left-hand edge of the picture in the trees the paint is more spread out and thus has less body. There are hardly any places in the picture which have been left unpainted to reveal the ground. The signature in the bottom right-hand corner was added immediately, or at least shortly, after the painting was complete (fig. 6). The surface relief of the painting was largely destroyed by an early lining measure, which in this case can, thanks to an exhibition sticker, be dated to before 1930. On the lining canvas verso is a stencil with the name and address of R. Gerard, Paris, who may have been the restorer responsible (fig. 9).

Camille Pissarro
Orchard in Pontoise at Sunset, 1878, oil on canvas, 46.7 x 55.2 cm, WRM Dep. FC 712

Camille Pissarro

born on 10 July in Charlotte Amalie, St. Thomas, Danish West Indies,
died on 12 November 1903 in Éragny-sur-Epte

Brief report with complete data as downloadable pdf-file

Further illustrations:

Fig. 02

Verso, lined (cf. fig. 9)


Fig. 03

Raking light


Fig. 04

UV fluorescence


Fig. 05

X-ray


Fig. 06

Signature and detail of the letters &quotPi&quot in incident light (top) and under UV stimulation (bottom); the blue paint partly blends with the underlying paint-layer wet-in-wet, microscopic photograph (M = 1 mm)


Fig. 07

Visible area of the original twill-weave canvas, microscopic photograph (M = 1 mm)


Fig. 08

Label verso of the Dr. George Viau collection


Fig. 09

Stencil verso on the lining canvas, presumably of the restorer who carried out the lining


Fig. 10

Detail, wet-in-wet impasto paint applications


Fig. 11

Paints of various colours applied wet-in-wet blending in the brush-stroke, microscopic photograph (M = 1 mm)


Fig. 12

Heavy flattening of the surface structure, detail under raking light


Fig. 13

Abrasions of the paint-layer and ground right down to the canvas, due to inexpert varnish removal or surface cleaning, microscopic photograph (M = 1 mm)