Shop
Museum
Overview
Exhibitions
Collections
Education
Publications
Clark Connects
Art on the Grounds
Study Center
Image Not Available
Zoom
Download
JPEG images are suitable for most presentation uses. TIFF images are suitable for publication purposes. When using images, please reproduce caption and credit information. For details or further information, click here.
If the file does not immediately download, it should open in a new tab. Once opened, right–click the image to save.
Audio
Camille Pissarro
French, 1830–1903
Route de Versailles, Louveciennes
1870
Clear spring sunshine casts alternating bands of light and shade along the road in front of Pissarro’s house in Louveciennes, a town west of Paris. With its broad, simplified handling, the painting seems like a direct transcription of the view. Yet the two trees in the foreground frame the scene with improbable symmetry, suggesting that the artist modified what he observed to achieve a balanced composition.
Image Caption
Camille Pissarro, Route de Versailles, Louveciennes, 1870, oil on canvas. Clark Art Institute, 1955.828
Medium
oil on canvas
Dimensions
13 x 16 1/4 in. (33 x 41.3 cm)
Frame: 19 7/8 x 23 x 2 3/8 in. (50.5 x 58.4 x 6 cm)
Object Number
1955.828
Acquisition
Acquired by Sterling and Francine Clark before 1955
Status
On View
Select Bibliography
Pissarro, Ludovico Rodo, and Lionello Venturi. Camille Pissarro, Son Art, Son Oeuvre. 2 volumes. Paris: P. Rosenberg, 1939. Sterling and Francine Clark Art Institute. Exhibit Five: French Paintings of the 19th Century. Exhibition catalogue. Williamstown, MA: Sterling and Francine Clark Art Institute, 1956. Sterling and Francine Clark Art Institute. List of Paintings in the Sterling and Francine Clark Art Institute. Williamstown, MA: Sterling and Francine Clark Art Institute, 1970. Sterling and Francine Clark Art Institute. List of Paintings in the Sterling & Francine Clark Art Institute. Williamstown, MA: Sterling and Francine Clark Art Institute, 1972. Ralph E. Shikes and Paula Harper.. Pissarro: His Life and Work.. New York: Horizon Press.. c. 1980.. Christopher Lloyd.. Pissarro.. Geneva: Skira/Rizzoli.. 1981.. Sterling and Francine Clark Art Institute. List of Paintings in the Sterling and Francine Clark Art Institute. Williamstown, MA: Sterling and Francine Clark Art Institute, 1984. John O'Brian.. Degas to Matisse: The Maurice Wertheim Collection.. New York: Abrams.. 1988.. Jacques & Monique Lay.. Louveciennes: mon village.. Paris.. 1989.. Tabler, Carol Forman. Illuminations: Images of Landscape in France, 18551885. Exhibition catalogue. Huntington, NY: Heckscher Museum, 1990. Kern, Steven, ed. List of Paintings in the Sterling and Francine Clark Art Institute. Williamstown, MA: Sterling and Francine Clark Art Institute, 1992. Pissarro, Joachim. Camille Pissarro. New York: Abrams, 1993. Paris: Galeries nationales du Grand Palais.. Impressionnisme: Les origines 1859-1869, Apr. 19-Aug. 8, 1994, (exh.cat. by Henri Loyrette and Gary Tinterow). Metropolitan Museum of Art, New York.. Origins of Impressionism. Sept. 19, 1994-Jan. 8, 1995; Grand Palais, Paris, April 19-Aug. 8, 1994.. 1994.. Guillermo Solana, ed.. El Impresionismo: La Visión Original: Antologia de la critica de arte (1867-1895).. Madrid: Ediciones Siruela.. 1997.. Washington (D.C.). The Phillips Collection. Impressionists in Winter: Effets de Neige. Sept. 19, 1998-Jan. 3, 1999; Fine Arts Museums of San Francisco, Jan. 30-May 2, 1999. Cat. by Charles S. Moffett et al. Remond, Sylvie et al. L'Impressionisme et naissance du cinéma. Musée des Beaux-Arts de Lyon, April 13 - July 18, 2005. Fage Edition and Musée des Beaux-Arts de Lyon. 2005:p. 115 cat no. 26. Pissarro, Joachim and Claire Durand-Ruel Snollaerts. Pissarro: Critical Catalogue pf Paintings. Vol. I-III. Paris: Wildenstein Institute Publications. 2005. Rothkopf, Katherine. Pissarro: Craeting the Impressionist Landscape. Baltimore Museum of Art, February 11 - May 13, 2007; Milwaukee Art Museum, June 10 - September 9, 2007; Memphis Brooks Museum of Art, October 7, 2007 - January 6, 2008.. The Baltimore Museum of Art with Philip Wilson Publishers Ltd. 2006. Ganz, James A. and Richard R. Brettell. Great French Paintings from the Clark: Barbizon through Impressionism. Exhibition catalogue. New York: Skira Rizzoli Publications; Williamstown, MA: Sterling and Francine Clark Art Institute, 2011. Lees, Sarah, ed. Nineteenth-Century European Paintings at the Sterling and Francine Clark Art Institute. Williamstown, MA: Sterling and Francine Clark Art Institute; New Haven and London: distributed by Yale University Press, 2012.
Provenance
Lucien Pissarro, the artist’s son, London (1904–until at least 1938, probably sold to Rosenberg, c. 1940–41);¹ [Paul Rosenberg, New York, c. 1940–41, sold to Salz, 14 July 1941]; [Sam Salz, New York, sold to Durand-Ruel, 15 July 1941]; [Durand-Ruel, New York, sold to Clark, 26 Feb. 1942, as Route de Versailles]; Robert Sterling Clark (1942–55); Sterling and Francine Clark Art Institute, 1955.
1. In the Paul Rosenberg Archives, there is an undated letter from Lucien Pissarro to Paul Rosenberg, sent to 15 East 58th Street, New York (the Hotel Madison), an address Rosenberg used only from 1940–41. In it, Pissarro describes arrangements for shipping three paintings to Rosenberg from London, one of which is titled “La Route de Versailles à Louveciennes.” Although no further documentation identifying this work was found, it may correspond to the Clark painting (The Paul Rosenberg Archives, a gift of Elaine and Alexandre Rosenberg, II.A.23. The Museum of Modern Art Archives, New York.