The National Museum of Western Art

Updated 07 March 2023

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On Display

Permanent collection

Camille Pissarro

Saint Thomas, 1830 - Paris, 1903

The Harvest

Date 1882
Materials and Techniques tempera on canvas
Size(cm) 70.3 x 126
Inscriptions Signed and dated lower right: C. Pissarro. 1882
Credit Line Donated by the heirs of Mr. Kojiro Matsukata (ex-Matsukata Collection)
Standard ref. Pissarro/Venturi 1358; M861
Category Paintings
Collection Number P.1984-0003

Figures work in a wheat field that covers the entire horizontal canvas. The horizon line in the distance is placed one quarter of the way down from the top of the painting. The painting presents a scene of wheat harvesting in Pontoise, a quiet village on the outskirts of Paris. By the 1840s this area was connected to Paris by train and it became the home for many young painters. The Impressionist painter Pissarro was one of these resident painters, setting up his studio in the area twice, in 1866-68 and then again in 1872-82. This work was created near the end of Pissarro's second residence in Pontoise, and it was exhibited in the 7th Impressionist exhibition. Several of Pissarro's characteristic features of this period are apparent in this work. One is the handling of the figures. Up until that time figures were simply small, added elements to a composition, but in the 1880s they came to play a major role in his works. At time he created close-up images of either a single figure or a few of them, carefully depicting them with a psychological understanding. In this canvas, two figures, a farm woman holding a sheaf of harvested wheat in the left foreground and a woman bent over next to her, are elements that had never before been seen in Pissarro's works. In this regard Pissarro distanced himself from the Impressionist world that was essentially naturalist and objective even in nature, and brought a new form of dynamism to his compositions. Numerous watercolor and chalk preparatory works for this painting remain and we can imagine how Pissarro spent many hours in his studio carefully creating this work. This method also distances itself from the "Impressionistic" production method that is frequently a case of works painted in a relatively short period of time. (Source: Masterpieces of the National Museum of Western Art, Tokyo, 2009, cat. no.81)

Provenance

Sanmarcelli; his sale, 22 April 1895, lot 58; Boussod, Valadon & Cie, Paris, 1903; Galerie Levesque & Cie, Paris, 1914; Wilhelm Hansen, Ordrupgaard, near Copenhagen, 1917; purchased from the above by Kojiro Matsukata, Kobe, through Galerie Barbazanges, Paris, 1923, as ‘L'automne’ (Fr. 22,000) [see records in the Bibliothèque centrale des musées nationaux, Paris (copy in NMWA curatorial file)]; inherited by his family; deposited in the Bridgestone Museum of Art, Tokyo, 13 March 1953–6 April 1984; donated by the heirs of Kojiro Matsukata to NMWA, 1984.

Exhibition History

1882
7me Exposition des Artistes Indépendants (7th Impressionist Exhibition), Paris, 0  1882 - 0  1882, cat. no. 136
1953
Ex-Matsukata Collection, Bridgestone Gallery, Tokyo, 24 March 1953 - 10 May 1953, cat. no. 43
1955
2nd Ex-Matsukata Collection, Bridgestone Gallery, Tokyo, 8 November 1955 - 4 December 1955, cat. no. 33
1957
Seiyo Bijutsu Meisaku Ten (Masterpieces of Modern European Painting), Kyoto Municipal Museum of Art, 1 February 1957 - 24 March 1957, cat. no. 158
1957
La Collection Matsukata, Shiroki-ya Departmemt Store, Tokyo, 9 April 1957 - 28 April 1957, cat. no. 7
1957
Ex-Matsukata Collection, Ishibashi Art Gallery, Kurume, 1 September 1957 - 30 September 1957, cat. no. 22
1958
Bi no Bi, Mitsukoshi DepartmentStore, 15 April 1958 - 27 April 1958
1961
Kindai Seiyo Kaiga Meisaku Ten (Masterpieces of Modern European Painting), Ishibashi Art Gallery, Kurume, 18 March 1961 - 28 May 1961, cat. no. 17
2000
Tanka at the National Museum of Western Art: An Encounter between Poet and Art, National Museum of Western Art, Tokyo, 25 July 2000 - 29 October 2000, cat. no. 37
2011
Pissarro's People, Sterling and Francine Clark Art Institute, Williamstown, 12 June 2011 - 2 October 2011, cat. no. 116, col. repr., Fine Arts Museums of San Francisco (Legion of Honor), 22 October 2011 - 22 January 2012
2013
Monet, An Eye for Landscapes: Innovation in 19th Century French Landscape Paintings, Pola Museum of Art, 13 July 2013 - 24 November 2013, The National Museum of Western Art, Tokyo, 7 December 2013-9 March 2014, cat. no. 29, col. repr.
2016
The Old Matsukata Collection: Reenvisioning the Dream, Kobe City Museum, 17 September 2016 - 27 November 2016, cat. no. 38, col. repr.
2019
The Matsukata Collection: A One-Hundred-Year Odyssey: Upon the 60th Anniversary of the NMWA, The National Museum of Western Art, Tokyo, 11 June 2019 - 23 September 2019, cat. no. 137, col. repr.
2022
In Dialogue with Nature - from Friedrich, Monet and Van Gogh to Richter, The National Museum of Western Art, Tokyo, 4 June 2022 - 11 September 2022, cat. no. 83

Bibliography

1939
Pissarro, Ludovic R.; Venturi, Lionello. Camille Pissarro: son art, son œuvre. Paris, 1939, no. 1358.
1953
Sekai Bijutsu Zenshu. Vol. 23, Tokyo, 1953, pl. 10.
1959
Bridgestone Gallery. Tokyo, 1959, no. 32, repr.
1965
Bridgestone Gallery. Tokyo, 1965, no. 20, repr.
1968
Manet, Monet. Mukai, Junkichi et. al, eds. Tokyo, Yamada Shoin, [1968] (L'art du monde, vol.7) , pl. 44.
1971
Kamon, Yasuo. Masterpieces of Bridgestone Museum of Art, Tokyo. Connoisseur. vol. 176, no. 708, Feb. 1971, p. 86, no. 4.
1971
Matsukata Collection. Takashina, Shuji, ed. Tokyo, Shibundo, 1971 (Kindai no Bijutsu, 2), pl. 111.
1973
Pissaro, Sisley, Seurat. Kuroe, Mitsuhiko, anno. Tokyo, Shu-ei-sha, 1970 (L'art monderne du monde, 20), pl. I
1977
Bridgestone Museum of Art. Tokyo, 1977, no. 23, repr.
1979
LLoyd, Christopher. Pissarro. Oxford, 1979, p. 12, pl. 25.
1980
Brettel, Richard; Lloyd, Christopher. A Catalogue of the Drawings by Camille Pissarro in the Ashmolean Museum, Oxford. Oxford, Clarendon, 1980, pp. 43-46, fig. 13.
1980
Camille Pissarro 1830-1903 (exh. cat.). Hayward Gallery, London, 30 October 1980-11 January 1981; Grand Palais, Paris, 30 January-27 April 1981; Museum of Fine Arts, Boston, 19 May-9 August 1981.London, Arts Council of Great Britain, 1980, p. 172 (cited under no. 120).
1980
Shikes, Ralph E.; Harper, Paula. Pissarro: His Life and Work. London/ Melbourne/ New York, Quartet Books, 1980, p. 183, repr.
1981
Lloyd, Christopher. Camille Pissarro. Genève, Skira; New York, Rizzoli, 1981, pp. 94, 95, repr.
1984
Retrospective Camille Pissarro (exh. cat.). Isetan Museum of Art, Tokyo, 9 March-9 April 1984; Fukuoka Art Museum, 25 April-20 May 1984; Kyoto Municipal Museum of Art, 26 May-1 July 1984. [Tokyo], Art Life, 1984, p. 142 (cited under nos. 80, 81).
1986
The New Painting: Impressionism 1874-1886 (exh cat.). National Gallery of Art, Washington, 17 January-6 April 1986; Fine Arts Museums of San Francisco, M.H. de Young Memorial Museum, 19 April-6 July 1986. [San Francisco], Fine Arts Museums of San Francisco, 1986, p. 395, no. 136.
1986
Impressionist Drawings: From British Public and Private Collections (exh. cat.). Lloyd, Christopher; Thomson, Richard, eds. Ashmolean Museum, Oxford, 11 March-20 April 1986; Manchester City Art Gallery, 30 April-1 June 1986; Burrell Collection, Glasgow, 7 June-13 July 1986. Oxford, Phaidon Press and the Arts Council, 1986, p. 27, fig. 31.
1988
Annual bulletin of the National Museum of Western Art. No. 19 (1985), 1988, Takahashi, Akiya. New Acquisitions 1984. pp.27-28, Catalogue of the New Acquisitions 1984. pp. 98-99, repr.
1990
Catalogue of painting acquisitions: 1979-1989. Tokyo, The National Museum of Western Art, 1990, pp. 52-54, repr.
1990
The Old Matsukata Collection. Kobe City Museum, ed. Kobe, "Matsukata Korekushon Ten" Jikkoiinkai, 1990, cat. no. 1197.
2006
Masterpieces of The National Museum of Western Art, Tokyo. Tokyo, The National Museum of Western Art; Tokyo, The Western Art Foundation, 2006 (Japanese, preface in Japanese and English), no. 81, col. repr.
2009
Masterpieces of The National Museum of Western Art, Tokyo. Tokyo, The National Museum of Western Art; Tokyo, The Western Art Foundation, 2009, no. 81, col. repr.
2013
MONET, An Eye For Landscapes: Innovation in 19th Century French Landscape Paintings(exh. cat.). Tokyo, TBS, c2013, cat. no. 29, col. repr.
2013
Masterpieces: The National Museum of Western Art, Tokyo. Tokyo, The Western Art Foundation, 2013 (Japanese, preface in Japanese and English), no. 93, col. repr.
2016
The Old Matsukata Collection: Reenvisioning the Dream (exh. cat.). Kobe City Museum, ed. [Kobe], Executive Committee of the Old Matsukata Collection, 2016, pp. 78, 255-256, cat. no. 38, col. repr.
2018
The Matsukata Collection: Complete Catalogue of the European Art. Kawaguchi, Masako; Jingaoka, Megumi, eds. vol. 1: Paintings, Tokyo, The National Museum of Western Art, Tokyo, 2018, cat. no. 861, col. repr.

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