Durand-Ruel, Paris (acquired before 1891)
G. Ibos (sold: Hôtel Drouot, Paris, June 19, 1900, lot 27)
M. F. Stumpf (acquired before 1904 and sold: Galerie Georges Petit, Paris, May 7, 1906, lot 73)
Durand-Ruel and Bernheim Jeune, Paris (jointly purchased at the above sale)
Arnold Behrens (acquired from the above on March 23, 1910)
Captain Richard A. Peto, Isle of Wight (circa 1951)
Mrs. Rosemary Peto (by descent from the above sold: Christie's, London, July 6, 1971, lot 17)
Lefevre Gallery, London (acquired at the above sale)
Ronald Lyons
Mrs. Ernest Kanzler (sold: Christie's, London, July 1, 1974, lot 9)
Piccadilly Gallery, London (acquired at the above sale)
Acquired from the above by the present owner in 1974

Paris, Galerie Durand-Ruel, Camille Pissarro, 1904, no. 11
London, Arts Council, French Paintings: A Second Selection from Mr. Peto's Collection, 1951, no. 21
London, Marlborough Fine Art, French Masters of the XIXth and XXth Centuries, 1951, no. 38
London, Marlborough Fine Art, Camille Pissarro and Alfred Sisley, 1955, no. 4
London, Marlborough Fine Art, A Selection of Important XIXth Century French Masters, 1960, no. 20
Plymouth, City Art Gallery, French Impressionists and English Paintings and Sculpture from the Peto Collection, 1960, no. 61
London, Marlborough Fine Art, XIXth and XXth Century French Paintings from English Private Collections, 1965, no. 27
London, Marlborough Fine Art, Pissarro in England, 1968, no. 2
Jerusalem, Israel Museum, Opening Exhibition of the Lotte and Walter Floersheimer Pavilion for Impressionist and Post-Impressionist Art, 1979
Birmingham, City Museum and Art Gallery & Glasgow, The Burrell Collection, Camille Pissarro: Impressionism Landscape and Rural Labour, 1990, no. 9
Jerusalem, Israel Museum & New York, The Jewish Museum, Camille Pissarro: Impressionist Innovator, 1994, no. 37
London, Royal Academy of Arts; Tokyo, Sezon Museum of Art & Nagoya, Matsuzakaya Art Museum, From Manet to Gauguin: Masterpieces from Swiss Private Collections, 1995, no. 45 (40 in Tokyo & Nagoya)
Pissarro: Creating the Impressionist Landscape (exhibition catalogue), Baltimore Museum of Art; Milwaukee Art Museum & Memphis Brooks Museum of Art, 2007-08, illustrated in the catalogue

Julius Meier-Graefe, "Camille Pissarro," Kunst und Künstler, Berlin, September 1904, p. 481
Vittorio Pica, Gli Impressionisti francesi, Bergamo, 1908, illustrated
Beaux Arts du Monde, vol. 29, Tokyo, 1929, illustrated
Ludovic-Rodo Pissarro & Lionello Venturi, Camille Pissarro: son art, son oeuvre, vol. I, Paris, 1939, no. 122, catalogued p. 96; vol. II, no. 122, illustrated pl. 24 (titled La Seine à Marly)
Ralph E. Shikes & Paula Harper, Pissarro, His Life and Work, London, Melbourne & New York, 1980, p. 101, illustrated in color p. 100
Christopher Lloyd, Camille Pissarro, Geneva, 1981, illustrated p. 52
Christopher Lloyd, Studies on Camille Pissarro, London and New York, 1987, note 34, p. 92
Joachim Pissarro & Claire Durand-Ruel Snollaerts, Pissarro. Critical Catalogue of Paintings, vol. II, Paris, 20🦩05, no. 200, illustrated in color p. 171

 

The canvas is lined. There are areas of retouching along the top, left and right framing edges, visible under ultra-violet light. Apart from some very fine lines of stable craquelure, this work is in good condition. Colors: The tonality of the sky is fresher and not as pink as it appears in the catalogue illustration.
In response to your inquiry, we are pleased to provide you with a general report of the condition of the property described above. Since we are not professional conservators or restorers, we urge you to consult with a restorer or conservator of your choice who will be better able to provide a detailed, professional report. Prospective buyers should inspect each lot to satisfy themselves as to condition and must understand that any statement made by Sotheby's is merely a subjective qualified opinion.
NOTWITHSTANDING THIS REPORT OR ANY DISCUSSIONS CONCERNING CONDITION OF A LOT, ALL LOTS ARE OFFERED AND SOLD "AS IS" IN ACCORDANCE WITH THE CONDITIONS OF SALE PRINTED IN THE CATALOGUE.

This highly-detailed depiction of the Seine in the Parisian suburb of Bougival dates from the years immediately leading up to the official commencement of the Impressionist movement in 1874.   But when it was painted in 1871, Pissarro had already realized the expressive potenti🧔al for depicting the effects of shadow and light reflecting off the water.  When Ludovic-R💜odo Pissarro included this picture in his 1939 catalogue raisonné, he misidentified the location as Marly.  But given the architectural features along the banks of the river, Joachim Pissarro and Claire Durand-Ruel Snollaerts were able to correctly identify the scene as Bougival. 

Pissarro returned to France in July of 1871, having spent the last seven months in London to escape the Franco-Prussian war.  When he arrived in his home in Louveciennes after his time away, he found that it had been occupied by Prussians and pillaged, prompting him to leaꦚve for Pontoise in 1872.    The present work is one of the few pictures that he painted in the vicinity of Paris that year and shows no sign of the disruption of the past several months.    

This picture bears several similarities to the landscapes that Pissarro completed in England earlier that same year.  The industrial landscape of Great Britain offered Pissarro subject matter that he had not before taken into consideration, and this picture evidences a newfound fascination with the growth and expansion of the industrial landscape in France.  Here, as in his picture of the locomotive engine in Lordship Lane Station (fig. 1), a great plume of smoke rises from the stack of the steamboat along the river.    A sign of modern ingenuity, the boat appears just as natural amidst the landscape as the trees and the banks of the river and evidences the ever-increasing integration of the rural and the urb💟an.   The celebration of modern life would be a defining motif among the  Impressionist painters in the 1870s, and this picture marks one of Pissarro's first attempts as incorporating this theme into his own work.