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Camille Pissarro 1830-1903 La Servante assise dans le jardin d'Éragny, 1884 Signed 'C. Pissarro', dated '84' and dedicated 'à l'ami Nunes' lower right Oil on canvas 23 5 ⁄ 8 x 29 ½ in, 60 x 75 cm Provenance Given by the artist to Alfred Nunès, Paris René Gimpel, Paris Vicomte du Lude, Paris Christie's, London, 25 June 1990, lot 19 (sold by the above) Private Collection, UK Christie's, London, 23 June 2015, lot 10 Private Collection (acquired from the above) Exhibitions Oxford, Ashmolean Museum of Art and Archaeology, 2012 (on loan) Literature L. R. Pissarro and L. Venturi, Camille Pissarro son art—son oeuvre, Vol. I, Paris, 1939, no. 655; Vol. II, no. 655, pl. 135, illus. J. Pissarro and C. Durand-Ruel Snollaerts, Pissarro: Catalogue critique des peintures, Vol. III, Paris, 2005, no. 770, p. 510, illus. La Servante assise dans le jardin d'Éragny is a charming depiction of Camille Pissarro's children Ludovic-Rodo (to the left) and Jean- Marguerite (to the right) being watched over by their nursemaid. The work was painted in Éragny in the spring of 1884 where the family had moved that year and would remain for the rest of the artist's life. During this period, Pissarro focused on capturing the normalcies of everyday rural life and the landscape that surrounded him. He wrote with enthusiasm to his Parisian dealer Paul Durand-Ruel that "I haven't been able to restrain myself from painting, so beautiful are the motifs that surround my garden". The early 1880s was a period of change in Pissarro's art. His handling of paint evolved from the loose free brushwork, more closely associated with Impressionism, towards small and carefully controlled touches of paint. He spent less time painting en plein air, instead preferring to work more in his studio and increasing the amount of preparatory sketches. At this time, Pissarro also began to favour figure paintings over landscape, creating a number of depictions of the women of Éragny working in the fields. In La Servante assise dans le jardin d'Éragny, he places the children's nanny at the forefront with his children in the background, to give gravitas to the woman watching over his children. Pissarro gifted La Servante assise dans le jardin d'Éragny to his cousin Alfred Nunès who was close to the family. More recently, it was on long term loan to the Ashmolean Museum in Oxford. 4