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A wide creek winds between a tree-lined bank to our left and hazy mountains to our right in this horizontal landscape painting. The riverbank curves deeply like a backward capital letter B. Marshy grasses grow in tufts, and palm and other trees grow in a grove to our left. One brown-skinned person wearing only a white cloth around the hips carries a long stick near the shoreline. Dabs of brown and muted dark pink suggest other people farther along the riverside. Tree-covered boulders jut into the creek from our right. A band of rocky, mountains are smoky mauve-pink across the rightmost two-thirds of the horizon, which comes a third of the way up the composition. The butter-yellow sun is low on the horizon to our right, peeking through the grove of palm trees. The light pours across the placid surface of the creek, creating a soft yellow streak next to the reflection of the mountain ridge. A few heather-pink clouds drift across the pale turquoise sky. The artist signed and dated the painting in the lower left corner, “C. Pizarro. 1856. Paris.”

Camille Pissarro

A Creek in St. Thomas (Virgin Islands), 1856

Not on View

Medium

oil on academy board

Dimensions

overall: 24.5 x 32.2 cm (9 5/8 x 12 11/16 in.)

framed: 37.5 x 45.7 x 4.8 cm (14 3/4 x 18 x 1 7/8 in.)

Credit Line

Collection of Mr. and Mrs. Paul Mellon

Accession Number

1985.64.29

Artists / Makers

Camille Pissarro (artist) French, born St. Thomas, Virgin Islands, 1830 - 1903

Image Use

This image is in the public domain.
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Inscription

lower left: C. Pizarro. 1856. / Paris

Provenance

Antoine Melbye; Mme Melbye's nephew, Emmanuel Pichon, Le Pecq, France, by 1936 until at least 1939.[1] Mme Jules Joets, by 1956;[2] sold 1959 to (Wildenstein & Co., London, New York and Paris);[3] sold 1960 to Mr. Paul Mellon, Upperville; gift 1985 to NGA.

[1] Published as in Pichon collection by Rewald, "L'Oeuvre de jeunesse de Camille Pissarro," L'Amour de l'art, 1936, p.141 repro. and in Pissarro and Venturi catalogue raisonné, 1939, no. 6.

[2] Exhibited in Paris, 1956 and Berne, 1957, from a private collection in Paris. According to Paul Mellon records in NGA curatorial files, this collection was that of Mme Jules Joets. A label from the 1957 exhibition on the reverse of the painting gives owner as Mme Joets.

[3] Wildenstein's date and source of acquisition according to letter dated 14 December 1998 in NGA curatorial files.

Associated Names

Joets, Jules, Mme
Melbye, Antoine
Mellon, Paul
Pichon, Emmanuel
Wildenstein & Co., Inc.

Exhibition History

1956: Exposition Camille Pissarro, Galerie Durand-Ruel, Paris, 1956, no. 1.

1957: Camille Pissarro, Kunstmuseum, Berne, 1957, no. 2.

2012: Carribbean: Crossroads of the World, El Museo del Barrio, New York; The Queens Museum, Flushing; The Studio Museum in Harlem; Pérez Art Museum, Miami, 2012-2014, not in catalogue (shown only at El Museo del Barrio and in Miami).

2014: Camille Pissarro - Der Vater des Impressionismus, Von der Heydt-Museum, Wuppertal, 2014-2015, unnumbered catalogue, repro.

2015: From San Juan to Paris and Back: Francisco Oller, His Caribbean, and the Era of Impressionism, The Jack S. Blanton Museum of Art, The University of Texas at Austin; Brooklyn Museum; Museo de Arte de Puerto Rico, San Juan, 2015-2016, not in catalogue.

2016: The First Jewish Americans: Freedom and Culture in the New World, The New-York Historical Society, New York, 2016-2017, no catalogue.

2017: Pissarro. Between Danish Golden Age Painting and French Impressionism, Ordrupgaard, Copenhagen, 2017, fig. 146.

Bibliography

1936: Rewald, John. "L'Oeuvre de jeunesse de Camille Pissarro." L'Amour de l'Art XVII (1936):141

1939: Pissarro, Ludovic and Lionello Venturi. Camille Pissarro, son art, son oeuvre. 2 vols. Paris, 1939:1:78, no. 6, as Une Crique a Saint-Thomas (Antilles); 2:pl. 2.

2005: Pissarro, Joachim and Claire Durand-Ruel Snollaerts, Pissarro: Critical Catalogue of the Paintings, 3 vols., Milan, Paris and New York, 2005: II:16, repro.