Camille Pissarro, Place du Carrousel, Paris, 1900, oil on canvas, National Gallery of Art,Ailsa Mellon Bruce Collection, Washington, D.C.
Title: Place du Carrousel, Paris, 1900
Artist: Camille Pissarro (1830-1903)
Pissarro was about 70 when he painted PLACE DU CARROUSEL, a favorite of mine, currently on view at the National Gallery of Art. Some of Pissarro’s most memorable Impressionist works were done in Paris near the end of his life. His health was the main factor; an eye ailment prevented him from painting outside, so he moved to the capital where he worked from hotel rooms.
During this period of his late 60s and early 70s, Pissarro’s output was prolific, producing some numerous views of the streets, parks, and bridges of Paris during the changing seasons. Although the time of year is not specifically identified in PLACE DU CARROUSEL, would you say it is either late spring or early summer? Notice the freshness of the greens of the trees, ranging from dark to light, rendered with delicate, expressive touches of the brush. The atmosphere clear with some clouds that seem to be suspended above. The inhabitants of Paris are out and about, either strolling in the foreground area of the Tuileries Gardens, a few protected by the blue-gray shadows of the trees–or traveling in their carriages just behind.
Yet, they are represented by tiny specks of paint, secondary to the panorama surrounding them. Painted from a hotel in the rue de Rivoli, in the heart of Paris, Pissarro offers us one of the most spectacular visions of the historic city. The Place du Carrousel itself is in the middle section of the painting, distinguished by a prominent arch rising in what was once a parade grounds (note: carrousel translates into military drill). While France’s major museum, the Louvre, is in the distance, monumental in scale.
Fortunately PLACE DU CARROUSEL is in a safe place today, surviving an extraordinary history of intrigue and even danger. For in 1941, it was first in the hands of Third Reich leader and notorious art thief Hermann Goering, then Nazi art dealer Gustave Rochlitz. After the war, it was returned to the Stahl family, the original owners, and eventually purchased in 1949 by Ailsa Mellon Bruce.
In the public domain, courtesy of the National Gallery of Art, Washington, D.C.
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