Rouen's Historic City Center: Rouen is an ancient city in Normandy built around, and visually dominated by, a famous and much visited Gothic cathedral. In the immediate environs were many relatively low buildings dating to the sixteenth century and visible in this canvas depicting the rue de l’Epicerie (Market Street) in fair weather. The narrow thoroughfare was a popular subject, and there are several views, including a watercolor of about 1832 by the British artist J. M. W. Turner (Tate, London, Turner Bequest, D24819), an etching of 1909 by the American artist John Marin (National Gallery, Washington, 2005.98.188), and various book illustrations. All focus on the overwhelming scale of the cathedral and, more generally, on the medieval aspect of the town. Rouen cathedral was gravely damaged, and the old city center largely destroyed, by Allied bombing in April 1944.

The Painting: Pissarro took a close look at life on the ground, choosing to depict a vast crowd of figures packed tightly together to do their Friday shopping. Heads of the people in the narrow roadway near the cathedral take the form of different colored dots. The pigments are thickly applied throughout. In the near distance is place de la Haute-Vieille-Tour, where awnings are extended against the sun, sheltering restaurants at left and stalls at right, and tables are set up to display additional merchandise. From the rue de l’Epicerie, which still exists, the south transept of the cathedral lies at an angle, so that from his vantage point the artist could not have seen the Calende portal and window, at the center of the church's façade, in full. He truncated the main cathedral spire and showed the roof of the nave sloping westward, toward the façade. The great building and the three different towers are thus absorbed into a compressed overall view. Three smaller spires also pierce the skyline. Unlike Claude Monet, Pissarro never painted the massive west front of the cathedral (see, for example, The Met 30.95.250). Only once, in a canvas of 1896, did Pissarro show the whole south side of the building, seen over the rooftops (Toledo Museum of Art, 1951.361).

A Group of Three: Pissarro’s final working visit to Rouen was in 1898. According to his habit, he observed the three cityscapes that constitute this series from a fixed point, an upstairs window. The additional canvases are not as well known because they are privately owned: one belongs to a foundation (Van Vlissingen Art Foundation, Zeist, MO-1989-02) and the other to a corporation;[1] neither has appeared recently on the art market. The framing of the scene differs slightly in each, but the main difference is that in the other two there is very little foot traffic. The Van Vlissingen picture shows the entire south portal and is marked by a long shadow cast diagonally across the foreground by the late afternoon sun. In the third work, there are carriages in addition to a few pedestrians.

Katharine Baetjer 2022

[1] Sale, Christie’s, New York, November 14, 1990, no. 9, ill.; Pissarro and Snollaerts 2005, 3, no. 1222, ill. The painting was most recently deposited at the Yamagata Museum of Art.

Inscription: Signed and dated (lower left): C.Pissarro. / 1898

[Durand-Ruel, Paris, 1898–1900; bought from the artist on October 21, 1898, for Fr 1,500; sold on March 21, 1900, for Fr 5,000, to Bernard]; Louis Bernard [Monsieur L. B.], Paris (1900–1901; his sale, Hôtel Drouot, Paris, May 11, 1901, no. 47, as "Rue de l'Épicerie, à Rouen, for Fr 8,000 to Leclanché); Maurice Leclanché, Paris (1901–d. 1921; his estate, 1921–24; his estate sale, Hôtel Drouot, Paris, November 6, 1924, no. 62, as "La rue de l'Épicerie, à Rouen," for Fr 83,000 to Savard); Auguste Savard, Paris (1924–39/40; sold through an intermediary to Varenne); Roger Varenne, Geneva (1939/40–60; sold to The Met)

Paris. Galerie Durand-Ruel. "Tableaux par Camille Pissarro," February 27–March 10, 1928, no. 69 (as "La rue de l'Epicerie, Rouen").

Kunstmuseum Bern. "Camille Pissarro, 1830–1903," January 19–March 10, 1957, no. 98 (as "La rue de l'Epicerie [sic] à Rouen," lent by a private collection, Geneva).

Paris. Petit Palais. "De Gericault à Matisse: Chefs-d'œuvre français des collections suisses," March–May 1959, no. 110 (lent by a private collection, Geneva).

New York. Wildenstein & Co., Inc. "C. Pissarro," March 25–May 1, 1965, no. 68.

New York. M. Knoedler & Co. "Impressionist Treasures from Private Collections in New York," January 12–29, 1966, no. 24.

Museum of Fine Arts, Boston. "Masterpieces of Painting in The Metropolitan Museum of Art," September 16–November 1, 1970, unnumbered cat. (p. 85, as "The Old Market at Rouen and the Rue de l'Epicerie [sic]").

Tokyo National Museum. "Treasured Masterpieces of The Metropolitan Museum of Art," August 10–October 1, 1972, no. 101.

Kyoto Municipal Museum of Art. "Treasured Masterpieces of The Metropolitan Museum of Art," October 8–November 26, 1972, no. 101.

New York. The Metropolitan Museum of Art. "The Impressionist Epoch," December 12, 1974–February 10, 1975, not in catalogue.

Leningrad [St. Petersburg]. State Hermitage Museum. "100 Paintings from the Metropolitan Museum," May 22–July 27, 1975, no. 69.

Moscow. State Pushkin Museum. "100 Paintings from the Metropolitan Museum," August 28–November 2, 1975, no. 69.

Museum of Fine Arts, Boston. "Pissarro," May 19–August 9, 1981, no. 81.

Staatsgalerie Stuttgart. "Camille Pissarro," December 11, 1999–May 1, 2000, no. 63.

Sydney. Art Gallery of New South Wales. "Camille Pissarro," November 19, 2005–February 19, 2006, no. 89.

Melbourne. National Gallery of Victoria. "Camille Pissarro," March 4–May 28, 2006, no. 89.

Museum of Fine Arts, Houston. "The Masterpieces of French Painting from The Metropolitan Museum of Art: 1800–1920," February 4–May 6, 2007, no. 51.

Berlin. Neue Nationalgalerie. "Französische Meisterwerke des 19. Jahrhunderts aus dem Metropolitan Museum of Art," June 1–October 7, 2007, unnumbered cat.

Musée des Beaux-Arts de Rouen. "A City for Impressionism: Monet, Pissarro, and Gauguin in Rouen," June 4–September 26, 2010, no. 87 (as "Rue de l'Épicerie in Rouen, Effect of Sunlight").

LOAN OF THIS WORK IS RESTRICTED.

Camille Pissarro. Letter to Lucien Pissarro. August 19, 1898 [published and translated in John Rewald, ed., "Camille Pissarro Letters to His Son Lucien," London, 1980, p. 329], writes from Rouen, remarking that he discovered "an excellent place, where I hope to paint the rue de l'Épicerie and even the market, a really interesting one which is held there every Friday".

Camille Mauclair. The Great French Painters. New York, [1903], ill. p. 27.

Curiosa. "Jeudi 6 Novembre." Le Figaro artistique no. 49 (1924), p. 93, ill., calls it the most important picture in the Leclanché sale; notes that the starting price was Fr 40,000, but that it was hotly contested between M. Lehoucq and M. Savard, the latter buying it for Fr 83,000.

Ludovic Rodo Pissarro and Lionello Venturi. Camille Pissarro, son art—son œuvre. reprint ed. 1989. Paris, 1939, vol. 1, pp. 65, 225, no. 1036; vol. 2, pl. 208, no. 1036.

De Géricault à Matisse: Chefs-d'oeuvre français des collections suisses. Exh. cat., Petit Palais. Paris, 1959, unpaginated, no. 110, pl. 23.

John Rewald. The History of Impressionism. rev., enl. ed. New York, 1961, p. 570, ill., compares it with a photograph of the site, which was destroyed during World War II.

Charles Sterling and Margaretta M. Salinger. French Paintings: A Catalogue of the Collection of The Metropolitan Museum of Art. Vol. 3, XIX–XX Centuries. New York, 1967, pp. 21–22, ill., note that Pissarro made three paintings of this site (PV 1036–38), but only the MMA painting records the activities on Friday, market day; remark that in it the buildings in the foreground "are treated with many broad, simple areas of color, in contrast to the background, where the richly varied architecture of the cathedral towers is handled with a rough and scintillant impressionistic technique".

John Rewald. "The Impressionist Brush." Metropolitan Museum of Art Bulletin 32, no. 3 (1973/1974), p. 54, no. 28, ill. (overall and color details).

Christopher Lloyd and Anne Distel in Pissarro. Exh. cat., Hayward Gallery. London, 1980, pp. 143–44, 215, no. 81, ill., comment that it is notable "for the compression of a variety of architectural forms, which link the upper and lower halves of the composition together".

Christopher Lloyd. Camille Pissarro. New York, 1981, pp. 128–29, 132, 147, ill. (color), believes that it is the only view of Rouen painted by Pissarro during the 1890s that updated an established topographical tradition; remarks that it evokes the contemporary life of the city as opposed to its history.

Anne Schirrmeister. Camille Pissarro. New York, 1982, p. 16, colorpl. 16.

Charles S. Moffett. Impressionist and Post-Impressionist Paintings in The Metropolitan Museum of Art. New York, 1985, pp. 100–101, ill. (color, overall and detail).

Christopher Lloyd. "Camille Pissarro and Rouen." Studies on Camille Pissarro. Ed. Christopher Lloyd. London, 1986, p. 86, pl. 45.

Joachim Pissarro. Camille Pissarro. New York, 1993, p. 260, fig. 302 (color).

Albert Kostenevich. Hidden Treasures Revealed: Impressionist Masterpieces and Other Important French Paintings Preserved by the State Hermitage Museum, St. Petersburg. Exh. cat.New York, 1995, p. 170.

Katharine Baetjer. European Paintings in The Metropolitan Museum of Art by Artists Born Before 1865: A Summary Catalogue. New York, 1995, p. 441, ill.

Christoph Becker. Camille Pissarro. Exh. cat., Staatsgalerie Stuttgart. Stuttgart, 1999, pp. 122, 128–29, 195, no. 63, ill. (color).

Terence Maloon in Camille Pissarro. Exh. cat., Art Gallery of New South Wales. Sydney, 2005, pp. 29, 185, 254, no. 89, colorpl. 89, fig. 10 (color), remarks that it is prophetic of Picasso and Braque's Cubism.

Claire Durand-Ruel Snollaerts in Joachim Pissarro and Claire Durand-Ruel Snollaerts. Pissarro: Critical Catalogue of Paintings. Milan, 2005, vol. 1, pp. 375, 391–92, 396–97, 399, 401–2, 406, 422, 428; vol. 3, pp. 763–65, 955, 958, no. 1221, ill. (color).

Alexia de Buffévent in Joachim Pissarro and Claire Durand-Ruel Snollaerts. Pissarro: Critical Catalogue of Paintings. Milan, 2005, vol. 1, p. 302.

Susan Alyson Stein in The Masterpieces of French Painting from The Metropolitan Museum of Art: 1800–1920. Exh. cat., Museum of Fine Arts, Houston. New York, 2007, pp. 75, 247, no. 51, ill. (color and black and white).

Susan Alyson Stein in Masterpieces of European Painting, 1800–1920, in The Metropolitan Museum of Art. New York, 2007, pp. 89, 292, no. 83, ill. (color and black and white).

Marie-Claude Coudert in A City for Impressionism: Monet, Pissarro, and Gauguin in Rouen. Ed. Laurent Salomé. Exh. cat., Musée des Beaux-Arts de Rouen. Paris, 2010, p. 308, no. 87, ill. p. 314 (color).

Claire Durand-Ruel Snollaerts in A City for Impressionism: Monet, Pissarro, and Gauguin in Rouen. Ed. Laurent Salomé. Exh. cat., Musée des Beaux-Arts de Rouen. Paris, 2010, p. 75.

Claire Maingon in A City for Impressionism: Monet, Pissarro, and Gauguin in Rouen. Ed. Laurent Salomé. Exh. cat., Musée des Beaux-Arts de Rouen. Paris, 2010, p. 181.

In a letter to his son Lucien of August 19, 1898, Pissarro wrote that he had found an excellent place from where he could paint the Rue de l'Épicerie and the market that took place there on Fridays. He painted three pictures of this view (Pissarro and Venturi nos. 1036–38); however, The Met's work (PV no. 1036) is the only one that depicts the market on Friday.

A version of this composition (PV no. 1038) was sold at Sotheby's, London, April 4, 1989, no. 14.

Loan of this work is restricted.