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296
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CAMILLE PISSARRO
Grand’Mère (la femme de l’artiste)
.
Lithograph printed in black on smooth, cream wove paper, circa 1895.
150x112 mm; 6x4
1
/
2
inches, full margins. One of approximately only
10 known impressions of this subject. Signed, titled and inscribed “no.
1” in pencil, lower margin. A very good impression of this extremely
scarce lithograph.
The
remarqué
below the portrait of Pissarro’s wife, Julie (1838-1926)
portrays the artist’s daughter Jeanne. Pissarro married Julie Vellay, who
was the daughter of his mother’s maid, in 1871; he has shown her here
as a grandmother in her late 50s. Jeanne (1881-1948) was the couples’
sixth of seven children.
Their first daughter Jeanne Rachel, called Minette, was born in 1865, but
died of tuberculosis in 1874. Pissarro made an emotionally-moving post-
mortem lithograph of her on her deathbed (Delteil 129).
Pissarro also portrayed his sons Lucien (1863-1944) and Paul-Émile
(1884-1972), both artists as well, in lithographs in 1874 and circa 1895
respectively (Delteil 128 and 146 respectively) and Lucien sat for an
etched portrait by his father in 1890 (Delteil 91). Pissarro created a
tender portrayal of his mother, Rachel, who had rejected his wife Julie
because of her social status, in the final days of her life, as she rested in
bed in a candle-lit room (Delteil 80). Delteil 143.
[3,000/5,000]
PISSARRO,
Grand’mère (Effet de Lumière)
,
etching and aquatint, 1889.