Camille Pissarro | Paysannes travaillant dans les champs, Pontoise, 1881
In Paysannes travaillant dans les champs, Pontoise, painted in 1881, Camille Pissarro (1830-1903) depicts a group of five young women harvesting peas on the rural outskirts of Pontoise, a bustling market town about forty kilometers northwest of Paris where he and his family had lived for over a decade.
Pissarro had first treated the theme of picking peas in two oils the previous year, and he returned to the motif at least three times following his move to the agrarian hamlet of Éragny in 1884.
Camille Pissarro | Paysannes travaillant dans les champs, Pontoise, 1881 | Christie's