Camille Pissarro

The Little Country Maid

1882

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Not on display

Artist: Camille Pissarro 1830–1903
Original title: La Petite Bonne de campagne
Medium: Oil paint on canvas
Dimensions: Support: 635 × 530 mm
Collection: Tate
Acquisition: Bequeathed by Lucien Pissarro, the artist's son 1944
Reference: N05575

Display caption

This domestic interior depicts the dining room in Pissarro's house at Osny, near Pontoise in the French countryside not far from Paris. The child shown sitting at the table is the artist's fourth son, Ludovic Rodolphe. Pissarro spent much of his life near Pontoise and several of his paintings depict the surrounding landscape and its inhabitants. In this picture he used the typical Impressionist device of cutting off objects at the edges of the painting, such as the table, chairs and the prints on the wall, in order to give the composition a sense of informality and immediacy. The small, feathery brushstrokes prefigure Pissarro's later Neo-Impressionist or Divisionist paintings.

Gallery label, September 2004

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Catalogue entry

Camille Pissarro 1830-1903

N05575 La Petite Bonne de Campagne (The Little Country Maid) 1882

Inscribed 'C. Pissarro. 82' t.r.
Oil on canvas, 25 x 20 7/8 (63.5 x 53)
Bequeathed by Lucien Pissarro to the National Gallery 1944; transferred 1950
Prov: Lucien Pissarro, London
Exh: Post-Impressionist and Futurist Exhibition, Doré Galleries, London, October 1913 (5); Rétrospective des Oeuvres de Camille Pissarro (1830-1903), Galerie Manzi et Joyant, Paris, January-February 1914 (49); Memorial Exhibition of the Works of Camille Pissarro, 1830-1903, Leicester Galleries, London, May 1920 (69); Collection de Mme Vve Pissarro, Galerie Nunès et Fiquet, Paris, May-June 1921 (24); Modern French Paintings, Leicester Galleries, London, September-October 1923 (39); Centenaire de la Naissance de Camille Pissarro, Musée de l'Orangerie, Paris, February-March 1930 (55, repr.); Oil Paintings by Camille Pissarro (1830-1903), Tate Gallery, June-October 1931 (24); Birmingham City Art Gallery, October-November 1931 (19); Castle Museum, Nottingham, November-December 1931; War Memorial Art Gallery, Stockport, January 1932 (31); Mappin Art Gallery, Sheffield, February-March 1932 (29); Bootle Public Museum, April-May 1932 (30); Leeds City Art Gallery, July 1932 (15); Northampton Art Gallery, August-September 1932 (23); Grundy Art Gallery, Blackpool, September 1932 (23); Rochdale Art Gallery, October-November 1932; Honderd Jaar Fransche Kunst, Stedelijk Museum, Amsterdam, July-September 1938 (194, repr.); 19th Century French Pictures, Russell-Cotes Art Gallery, Bournemouth, April-June 1960 (42)
Lit: Ludovic Rodo Pissarro and Lionello Venturi, Camille Pissarro: son Art - son Oeuvre (Paris 1939), No. 575, Vol.1, p.163, repr. Vol.2, pl.119; John Rewald, Camille Pissarro (London 1963), p.132, repr. p.133 in colour; William Gaunt, The Impressionists (London 1972), p.246, repr. pl.96 in colour
Repr: Georges Lecomte, Camille Pissarro (Paris 1922), facing p.70; A. Tabarant, Pissarro (Paris 1924), pl.22

This represents a room in Pissarro's house at Osny, near Pontoise, and the child is his fourth son, Ludovic Rodolphe (1878-1952), later known as a painter and wood-engraver under the name Ludovic Rodo. He devoted many years to the preparation of a catalogue of his father's work.

Published in:
Ronald Alley, Catalogue of the Tate Gallery's Collection of Modern Art other than Works by British Artists, Tate Gallery and Sotheby Parke-Bernet, London 1981, pp.611-12, reproduced p.611