At the Window, rue des Trois Frères
1878–79
Medium
Pastel on cream wove pastel paper, perimeter mounted on light gray wove paper
Dimensions
Primary support: 38 × 26.3 cm (15 × 10 3/8 in.); Secondary support: 38.2 × 26.4 cm (15 1/16 × 10 7/16 in.)
Classification
prints and drawing
Department
Prints and Drawings
Museum
Art Institute of Chicago
Accession Number
186398
Rights
Public Domain
About this artwork
Camille Pissarro composed this pastel in front of a window in his apartment in the Montmartre district of Paris. He used his wife Julie as a model, as well as two young girls, who possibly memorialize his recently deceased daughters. Pissarro created many works at his rural residences outside of Paris, but in this pastel he embraced the interior—yet visibly urban—setting of his rented home. Even indoors, Pissarro found a way to investigate the effects of natural light, which is characteristic of...
About the Artist
Camille Pissarro · 1831–1903
Camille Pissarro (1830-1903) stands as the patriarch of Impressionism, the only artist to exhibit in all eight Impressionist exhibitions and a mentor whose influence shaped the trajectory of modern art. Born Jacob Abraham Camille Pissarro on the Caribbean island of St. Thomas to a Jewish-Portuguese merchant family, he abandoned the family business to pursue painting, eventually settling in Paris i...