A Washerwoman at Eragny by Pissarro in the Metropolitan Museum of Art, May 2011

Title: A Washerwoman at Éragny

Artist: Camille Pissarro (French, Charlotte Amalie, Saint Thomas 1830–1903 Paris)

Date: 1893

Medium: Oil on canvas

Dimensions: 18 x 15 in. (45.7 x 38.1 cm)

Classification: Paintings

Credit Line: Gift of Mr. and Mrs. Richard Rodgers, 1964

Accession Number: 64.154.1

Pissarro felt an affinity for the daily rhythms of peasant life that he witnessed around his home in the village of Éragny, not far from Paris. This washerwoman is hard at work, scrubbing linens and clothing in one barrel and rinsing them in another. The artist depicted the surrounding landscape with dappled touches of his brush—a legacy of the Pointillist style that he adopted in the mid-1880s. To suggest the effect of shimmering sunlight, he mixed pure yellow paint into the greens of the grass and trees while the pigment was still wet.

Text from: www.metmuseum.org/art/collection/search/437305