Woman Bathing Her Feet in a Brook

Oil on canvasCamille Pissarro (French, 1830–1903)/1895

Description

Camille Pissarro referred to this painting in a letter of November 1894, when he wrote to his son Lucien that he wanted to send him a picture of “a little peasant girl dipping her feet in the water.” At the time, he considered the work almost finished but still lacking “that little something,” exclaiming optimistically, “I think I will get it, I feel it!” His continued ruminations on the composition may explain its heavily encrusted surface. After finishing it, he painted a variation featuring a nude (a rarity for the artist) in the same pose and setting (1895; Metropolitan Museum of Art, New York).

Provenance

Albert Pontremoli, Paris, by April, 1904 [per Pissarro and Snollaerts, 2005]; sold Albert Pontremoli Sale, Hôtel Drouot, Paris, June 11, 1924, lot 136 (ill.) to Dr. Janos Plesch, Berlin, for 37,700 francs [per Hôtel Drouot sale cat. 1924]; Paul Rosenberg and Co., New York, by 1939 [this and the three following per material prepared by Richard-Raymond Alasko, May 1985, curatorial object file and Pissarro and Snollaerts, 2005]; sold to Mrs. John Astor, New York. E and A. Silberman Gallery, New York, by 1951; sold to Nathan Cummings, Chicago, January 25, 1952; transferred to Consolidated Foods Nathan Cummings Collection (Sara Lee Corporation), 1980; given to the Art Institute of Chicago, 1999.

Dimensions

73 × 92 cm (28 1/2 × 36 in.)

Source

The Art Institute of Chicago

Movement / Period

Post-Impressionism

Accession No

153799

Official Citations

[The Art Institute of Chicago Official Record][Full Resolution Image]

Curatorial Affinity Stream

Continuing the Universe of Camille Pissarro (French, 1830–1903)

Post-Impressionism • France • Harmonious Works & Contemporaries

Continuous Discovery