Femme et Enfant dans les Champs. A Woman and Her Child in the Fields. by Camille Pissarro, 1830-1903

Camille Pissarro, 1830-1903
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Femme et Enfant dans les Champs. A Woman and Her Child in the Fields.

Original chalk-drawn lithograph in black ink. c.1874. Signed in full in ink, and dedicated in ink by Pissarro to his friend the painter Guillaumin: 'à l'ami Guillaumin'. Extremely rare - only 7 or 8 known impressions, of which c. four are in permanent collections. Printed by the artist (studio not known).
Provenance: Collection David Weill. Sold Drouot May 1971 lot 249 illustrated.
Ref: Delteil - Pissarro Peintre Graveur no 135.

Extremely fine strong and tonal impression. On pale cream/ off-white chine volant paper. Generally excellent original unrestored condition; very slightest traces of paper time toning and old hinges on the reverse. Full margins. Sheet: 10 3/4 x 14 1/8ins. Image: 5 5/8 x 7 5/8ins (142x194mm)

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This beautiful very early work in lithography by Pissarro is exceptionally rare. Delteil records ?7 or 8 impressions? only, of which some four are in permanent collections. This impression was bought from the very famous sale of the great David Weill Collection in Paris in 1971. To our knowledge no other impression has appeared on the market since that time.

This impression of ?Femme et Enfant? is also dedicated by Pissarro to his great friend the other Impressionist painter Armand Guillaumin. It was probably drawn in 1874 at Auvers, most likely in the company of Guillaumin, when they were visiting their friend and patron Dr Gachet.

This is a marvellous example of the free, totally ?impressionist? style of Pissarro?s drawing in the early period of his career. His earliest works of the 1860?s are still relative tight and ?Barbizon? in feeling, indeed he called himself ?pupil of Corot?. In 1870 the outbreak of the Franco-Prussian War forced him to flee with his family to London. There he became a close friend of Manet (also sheltering from the conflict), and by 1871 when he could return to France, his work had a totally new lightness of touch and feeling for light which was to be the essence of Impressionism. It is these qualities which come over so plainly in this example of his earliest lithographic drawing.