print
- Museum number
- 1949,0411.3367
- Title
- Object: Marché à Pontoise
- Description
-
Woman, seen from behind, in bustling market. 1895
Lithograph, printed in brown ink on chine collé
- Production date
- 1895
- Dimensions
-
Height: 309 millimetres
-
Width: 229 millimetres
- $Inscriptions
-
- Curator's comments
- (Text from 'From Manet to Toulouse-Lautrec', BM 1978, cat.65)
In the second state the dress of the woman standing in the foreground was strengthened with lithographic wash. In the this (the third) state much was erased and redrawn in wash. This is the only lithograph for which an account of the artist's working procedure survives. In a letter of 8 April 1895 from Paris Pissarro wrote: 'J'ai une grande litho sur pierre en train, un Marché. Je la travaille ici à Paris. Je l'ai tripotée avec du lavis, grattée, frottée au papier à l'emeri; je ne sais pas ce que cela donnera, mais j'ai été bête de faire un Marché, j'aurais dû faire des Baigneuses.'
The composition of the lithograph is very close to that of a painting (PV932) also dated 1895. This is wrongly catalogued as 'Marché a Gisors'; the question is conclusively settled by the artist's autograph inscription on this impression. It is curious that Pissarro had left Pontoise for Eragny, near Gisors, as long before as 1884.
This has always been regarded as one of Pissarro's finest lithographs.
- Location
- Not on display
- Exhibition history
-
1978 Mar-Oct, BM, From Manet to Toulouse-Lautrec cat. no.65
2020, 20 February – 9 August, London, BM, G90, ‘French Impressions: prints from Manet to Cézanne’
- Acquisition date
- 1949
- Department
- Prints and Drawings
- Registration number
- 1949,0411.3367
