Durand-Ruel, New York

Mr. & Mrs🌳. H.O. Havemeyer,🌱 New York (acquired from the above in 1901)

Adaline H🦩avemeyer🐭 Frelinghusyen, Morristown (by descent from the above in 1929 and until 1963)

H.O.H. F𓃲reꦉlinghuysen (by descent from the above) 

By descent from the above

Paris, Galerie Georges Petit, Exposition internationale de peinture et de sculpture, 1887, no. 108

Newark, The Newark Museum, Art from New Jersey Homes, 1964

New York, Wildenstein, C. Pissarro, 1965, no. 42

New York, The Metropolitan Museum of Art, The Impressionist Epoch: A Centenary Exhibition, 1974-75

New York, The Metropolitan Museum of Art, Splendid Legacy: The Havemeyer Collection, 1993, no. 430, illustrated in color pl. 54

New York, The Metropolitan Museum of Art, 1🌊994 🍸;(on summer loan)

Jules Desclozeaux, "L'exposition internationale de peinture," L'Estafette, May 15, 1887

Ludovic-Rodo Pissarro & Lionello Venturi, Camille Pissarro. Son Art – Son oeuvre, voꦦl. I, Paris, 1939, no. 557, catalogued p. 160; vol. II, no. 557, illustrated plౠ. 115

Joachim Pissarro, Camille Pissarro, New York, 1993, fig. 111, illustr💯ated in color p. 117

Joachim Pissarro & Claire Durand-Ruel Snollaerts, Pissarro, Catalogue critique des peintures, vol. II,𝔉 Paris, 2005, no. 672, illustrated in coloﷺr p. 450

This work is in very good condition. The canvas is lined. Under ultra-violet light, there is one spot of retouching on the middle of the far right edge.
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.
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Pissarro's most celebrated landscapes are those he completed in Pontoise, where he lived from 1866 until 1883.  With his easel and paints he would set out into the countryside, relishing the opportunity to depict the seasonal variations of the surrounding environment (fig. 1). In Inondation à Pontoise, Pissarro allows the focus to rest on the natural landscape of the area and places the river Oise in the foreground. The township of Pontoise provides the backdrop for the composition. In the new catalogue raisonné on the artist's works, Joachim Pissarro describes the viewpoint depicted in this picture: "The river Oise in spate is viewed here from Saint Ouen-l'Aumone with the houses of Pontoise in the background.  Across the river we see the cluster of houses depicted in no. 263, on the rue du Haut-de-l'Hermitage (now rue Adrien-Lemoine).  Behind the tall poplars on the right, we glimpse the house that stands at what is presently number 30, rue Adrien-Lemoine" (J. Pissarro & C. Durand-Ruel Snoellarts, op. cit., p. 450). 

A few months prior to painting the present work, Pissarro had his first major retrospective at the Galerie Durand-Ruel in January 1882. His work was met with critical and commercial success and the artist was emboldened with a renewed confidence allowing him to return to his art with a passionate fervor. His works of the early 1880s reveal a continued attention to the Impressionist explorations of the prior decade, augmented by a new preoccupation with the Neo-Impressionist style. Inondation à Pontoise brilliantly illustrates this intersection. He imbues his masterful Impressionist technique with heightened color and staccato brushstrokes, thus creating a vibrant landscape that pulsates with life. Pissarro also chose to depict the river after a f🌠lood, a theme he would return to often in Eragny and Bazincourt during the early 1890s, which lends a heightened intensity to the natural landscape.

Pissarro's Pontoise paintings attracted considerable praise when they were exhibited in Paris during the 1880s and 1890s.  The favorable sentiments of his critics is exemplified by a piece by Octave Mirbeau, published in Le Figaro¸ around the time that the present work was painted: "The eye of the artist, like the mind of the thinker, discovers the larger aspects of things, their wholeness and unity. Even when he paints figures in scenes of rustic life, man is always seen in perspective in the vast terrestrial harmony, like a human plant. To describe the drama of the earth and to move our hearts, M. Pissarro does not need violent gestures, complicated arabesques and sinister branches against livid skies... a dream rises up, soars, and such a simple thing, so familiar to our eyes, transforms itself into an ideal vision, amplified and raised to a great decorative poetry" (quoted in R. E. Shikes & P. Harper, Pissarro: His Life and Work, New York, 1980, pp. 261-62).