Pontoise Road to Gisors in Winter by Pissarro in the Boston Museum of Fine Arts, January 2018

Pontoise, the Road to Gisors in Winter

Camille Pissarro (French (born in the Danish West Indies), 1830–1903)

1873

Medium/Technique: Oil on canvas

Dimensions: 59.7 x 73.7 cm (23 1/2 x 29 in.)

Credit Line: Bequest of John T. Spaulding

Accession Number: 48.587

Collections: Europe

Classifications: Paintings

France experienced unusually harsh winters and heavy snowfall in the early 1870s. This street scene of Pontoise, the small town northwest of Paris where Pissarro lived from 1872 to 1882, shows residents sweeping up a light dusting of snow beneath a lowering sky that promises more. Pissarro evokes cobblestones and shingled roofs with short, broad strokes of juxtaposed, unblended color.

Inscriptions: Lower right: C. Pissarro 1873

Provenance: 1925, Durand-Ruel, Paris and New York (stock no. 2079); February 7, 1925, sold by Durand-Ruel to John Taylor Spaulding (b. 1870 - d. 1948), Boston; 1948, bequest of John Taylor Spaulding to the MFA. (Accession Date: June 3, 1948)

Text from: collections.mfa.org/objects/33316/pontoise-the-road-to-gisors-in-winter