Camille Pissarro, Chaumière, Circa 1881, Charcoal On Paper With Color Highlights By The Artist

Camille Pissarro (1830-1903)
Chaumière, circa 1881
Charcoal on paper with color highlights by the artist
Stamped with the initials “CP” lower right
29 x 22 cm

Exhibition: Ohana Gallery, London, no. 1628
Provenance: - Bonin Collection, France
- Sale, Me Lair Dubreuil, June 26, 1931, lot no. 64
- Sale, Motte, 29 rue du Rhône, Geneva no. 40
Certificate of authenticity issued by Joachim Pissarro

Claude Bonin-Pissarro is the son of the French painter Alexandre Bonin and Jeanne Pissarro (known as Cocotte, 1881–1948), Camille’s daughter. Jeanne, unlike her brothers, is the only one of the children who will not receive the artistic education instilled by the “father of the Impressionists”. Indeed, as Lionel Pissarro, the painter's great-grandson, pointed out to us, Madame Pissarro refused the idea of her daughter becoming an artist and preferred sewing or embroidery, as reflected in the various portraits made by her father.

La Chaumière was part of the sale of the collection of Alexandre Bonin and Jeanne Pissarro which took place on June 26, 1931 at the Hôtel Drouot. We submitted it to the expert eye of Joachim Pissarro who produced the catalog raisonné of his grandfather's drawings, and who issued a certificate of authenticity.

The proximity of Camille Pissarro and Octave Mirbeau takes on its full meaning in this drawing representing a cottage. Indeed, this theme which translates the simplicity and the authentic character of life in the countryside allows Camille Pissarro to paint the humble life in rural France, and this against the public taste. This is where the art critic and the painter meet. In "Letters from My Cottage" published in 1885, the first book published by Octave Mirbeau, where we find the seeds of his future work, "Le Calvaire", "L'Abbé Jules", "Sébastien Roch", he distances himself from conformist criticism and finds himself in the literary avant-garde, breaking with the conventions of naturalism.

His friendship with Camille Pissarro is sincere and is coupled with a political proximity. Well before 1890 when Octave Mirbeau rallied to anarchism, both were rebellious, pacifists, and radically libertarians. Octave Mirbeau renounced the old realist novel, put himself on stage and inaugurated a form of autofiction before the letter, particularly in one of his last works "La 628.E8", a story of a car trip across Belgium, which we highly recommend reading.