Route de Versailles, Louveciennes

1870

Clear spring sunshine casts alternating bands of light and shade along the road in front of Pissarro’s house in Louveciennes, a town west of Paris. With its broad, simplified handling, the painting seems like a direct transcription of the view. Yet the two trees in the foreground frame the scene with improbable symmetry, suggesting that the artist modified what he observed to achieve a balanced composition.

Medium	oil on canvas
Dimensions	13 x 16 1/4 in. (33 x 41.3 cm) Frame: 19 7/8 x 23 x 2 3/8 in. (50.5 x 58.4 x 6 cm)
Object Number	1955.828
Acquisition	Acquired by Sterling and Francine Clark before 1955
Status	On Loan

Image Caption

Camille Pissarro, Route de Versailles, Louveciennes, 1870, oil on canvas. Clark Art Institute, 1955.828

Select Bibliography

Sterling and Francine Clark Art Institute. Exhibit Five: French Paintings of the 19th Century. Exhibition catalogue. Williamstown, MA: Sterling and Francine Clark Art Institute, 1956. Tabler, Carol Forman. Illuminations: Images of Landscape in France, 18551885. Exhibition catalogue. Huntington, NY: Heckscher Museum, 1990. Paris: Galeries nationales du Grand Palais.. Impressionnisme: Les origines 1859-1869, Apr. 19-Aug. 8, 1994, (exh.cat. by Henri Loyrette and Gary Tinterow). Metropolitan Museum of Art, New York.. Origins of Impressionism. Sept. 19, 1994-Jan. 8, 1995; Grand Palais, Paris, April 19-Aug. 8, 1994.. 1994.. Sterling and Francine Clark Art Institute. List of Paintings in the Sterling and Francine Clark Art Institute. Williamstown, MA: Sterling and Francine Clark Art Institute, 1970. Sterling and Francine Clark Art Institute. List of Paintings in the Sterling & Francine Clark Art Institute. Williamstown, MA: Sterling and Francine Clark Art Institute, 1972. Christopher Lloyd.. Pissarro.. Geneva: Skira/Rizzoli.. 1981.. Sterling and Francine Clark Art Institute. List of Paintings in the Sterling and Francine Clark Art Institute. Williamstown, MA: Sterling and Francine Clark Art Institute, 1984. John O'Brian.. Degas to Matisse: The Maurice Wertheim Collection.. New York: Abrams.. 1988.. Jacques & Monique Lay.. Louveciennes: mon village.. Paris.. 1989.. Ralph E. Shikes and Paula Harper.. Pissarro: His Life and Work.. New York: Horizon Press.. c. 1980.. Kern, Steven, ed. List of Paintings in the Sterling and Francine Clark Art Institute. Williamstown, MA: Sterling and Francine Clark Art Institute, 1992. Pissarro, Joachim. Camille Pissarro. New York: Abrams, 1993. Guillermo Solana, ed.. El Impresionismo: La Visión Original: Antologia de la critica de arte (1867-1895).. Madrid: Ediciones Siruela.. 1997.. Washington (D.C.). The Phillips Collection. Impressionists in Winter: Effets de Neige. Sept. 19, 1998-Jan. 3, 1999; Fine Arts Museums of San Francisco, Jan. 30-May 2, 1999. Cat. by Charles S. Moffett et al. Pissarro, Ludovico Rodo, and Lionello Venturi. Camille Pissarro, Son Art, Son Oeuvre. 2 volumes. Paris: P. Rosenberg, 1939. Remond, Sylvie et al. L'Impressionisme et naissance du cinéma. Musée des Beaux-Arts de Lyon, April 13 - July 18, 2005. Fage Edition and Musée des Beaux-Arts de Lyon. 2005:p. 115 cat no. 26. Pissarro, Joachim and Claire Durand-Ruel Snollaerts. Pissarro: Critical Catalogue pf Paintings. Vol. I-III. Paris: Wildenstein Institute Publications. 2005. Rothkopf, Katherine. Pissarro: Craeting the Impressionist Landscape. Baltimore Museum of Art, February 11 - May 13, 2007; Milwaukee Art Museum, June 10 - September 9, 2007; Memphis Brooks Museum of Art, October 7, 2007 - January 6, 2008.. The Baltimore Museum of Art with Philip Wilson Publishers Ltd. 2006. Lees, Sarah, ed. Nineteenth-Century European Paintings at the Sterling and Francine Clark Art Institute. Williamstown, MA: Sterling and Francine Clark Art Institute; New Haven and London: distributed by Yale University Press, 2012. Ganz, James A. and Richard R. Brettell. Great French Paintings from the Clark: Barbizon through Impressionism. Exhibition catalogue. New York: Skira Rizzoli Publications; Williamstown, MA: Sterling and Francine Clark Art Institute, 2011.

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Provenance

Lucien Pissarro, the artist’s son, London (1904–until at least 1938, probably sold to Rosenberg, c. 1940–41);¹ [Paul Rosenberg, New York, c. 1940–41, sold to Salz, 14 July 1941]; [Sam Salz, New York, sold to Durand-Ruel, 15 July 1941]; [Durand-Ruel, New York, sold to Clark, 26 Feb. 1942, as Route de Versailles]; Robert Sterling Clark (1942–55); Sterling and Francine Clark Art Institute, 1955. 1. In the Paul Rosenberg Archives, there is an undated letter from Lucien Pissarro to Paul Rosenberg, sent to 15 East 58th Street, New York (the Hotel Madison), an address Rosenberg used only from 1940–41. In it, Pissarro describes arrangements for shipping three paintings to Rosenberg from London, one of which is titled “La Route de Versailles à Louveciennes.” Although no further documentation identifying this work was found, it may correspond to the Clark painting (The Paul Rosenberg Archives, a gift of Elaine and Alexandre Rosenberg, II.A.23. The Museum of Modern Art Archives, New York.