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Two dark-skinned women stand facing each other on a dirt path that runs beside a body of water in this horizontal painting. One woman faces us and balances a flat tray loaded with white cloths on her head. Her left hand, on our right, holds the tray steady. The apron or loose, long skirt of her off-white dress is bunched up around her hips, but the fabric still falls to her ankles. A dark green, red, and brown scarf covering her head is tied in a knot by one ear, and the ends fall in front of that shoulder. The other woman stands in front of the first, to our left with her back to us. She wears an aquamarine-blue dress and garnet-red scarf tied around her head. A brown basket hangs from her left arm. The path angles from the lower right corner and cuts into the distance to our left. It is lined with brown and green bushes and grasses. An expanse of dirt to our right reaches to the shoreline, which curves like a C into the distance. Dabs of brown and dark pink suggest several more people standing or stooping in the surf in the distance. Shallowly sloping rust-brown hill cut into the water, spanning left two-thirds of the width of the composition along the horizon. The sky in the top half of the composition is a clear, milky white. The artist signed and dated the lower left corner, “C.Pizarro. Paris 1856.”

Camille Pissarro

Two Women Chatting by the Sea, St. Thomas, 1856

Not on View

Medium

oil on canvas

Dimensions

overall: 27.7 x 41 cm (10 7/8 x 16 1/8 in.)

framed: 49.2 x 35.9 x 3.8 cm (19 3/8 x 14 1/8 x 1 1/2 in.)

Credit Line

Collection of Mr. and Mrs. Paul Mellon

Accession Number

1985.64.30

Artists / Makers

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

Image Use

This image is in the public domain.
Read our full Open Access policy for images .

Inscription

lower left: C.Pizarro . Paris 1856.

Provenance

Gunnar A. Sadolin, Dragor, Denmark, by 1939.[1] (sale, Sotheby's, London, 1 December 1965, no. 146); (P. & D. Colnaghi & Co., London and New York); sold 1965 to Mr. Paul Mellon Upperville, VA; gift 1985 to NGA.

[1] Published in Sadolin collection in Pissarro/Venturi 1939, no. 5.

Associated Names

Colnaghi & Co., Ltd., P. & D.
Mellon, Paul
Sadolin, Gunnar A.
Sotheby's, London

Exhibition History

1975: The European Vision of America, National Gallery of Art, Washington;Cleveland Museum of Art; Musées Nationaux de France, 1975-1977

1979: 19th and 20th Century French Painting from the Collection of Mr. and Mrs. Paul Mellon, Virginia Museum of Fine Arts, Richmond, 1979 (long term exhibition), checklist no. 62

1995: Camille Pissarro: Impressionist Innovator, The Israel Museum, Jerusalem; The Jewish Museum, New York, 1994-1995, not in cat. (shown only in New York).

1999: "Camille Pissarro", Staatsgalerie Stuttgart, 1999-2000, no. 2.

2011: Pissarro's People, Sterling and Francine Clark Art Institute, Williamstown; California Palace of the Legion of Honor, The Fine Arts Museums of San Francisco, 2011-2012, unnumbered catalogue, fig. 43.

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.

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: Le premier des impressionnistes = The First among the Impressionists, Musée Marmottan Monet, Paris, 2017, no. 4, repro.

Bibliography

1939: Pissarro, Ludovic and Lionello Venturi. Camille Pissarro, son art, son oeuvre. 2 vols. Paris, 1939:1:78, no. 5, as Deux Femmes Causant au Bord de la Mer, Saint-Thomas; 2:pl. 1.

2005: Pissarro, Joachim and Claire Durand-Ruel Snollaerts, Pissarro: Critical Catalogue of the Paintings, 3 vols., Milan, Paris and New York, 2005: II:no. 23, repro.