Camille Pissarro, French 1830-1903- Paysage; watercolour, signed lower right, 13x18cm Provenance: SCP Briest, 22nd June 1994 lot 79; Stern Pissarro, London, where purchased by the present owner. Note: Camille Pissarro was a Danish-French painter whose importance in the history of Impressionist and Post-Impressionist art cannot be overstated. Indeed, Pissarro was the only artist whose work was included in all eight of the Paris Impressionist exhibitions in the late 19th century, demonstrating his central role in this seminal artistic movement.  Pissarro was closely associated with central figures of 19th-century French art, including Gustave Courbet and Jean-Baptiste-Camille Corot, the immense influence of both of whom being evident in Pissarro’s own work. Corot acted as a tutor to Pissarro, encouraging the latter to paint his natural surroundings en plein air, an approach which defined Pissarro’s output throughout his career. While studying at the Académie Suisse, Pissarro became friends with contemporaries who included Paul Cézanne and Claude Monet, and whose influence on one another’s art is immediately apparent. Pissarro’s approach in turn heavily impacted the work of a number of central Post-Impressionist artists, such as Cézanne, Paul Gauguin, Vincent van Gogh, and Georges Seurat, the latter of whom Pissarro worked alongside later in his career.  The present piece is a revealing example of Pissarro’s approach, illustrating his enduring preoccupation with the natural world, and the capacity of the artist to capture the atmosphere of the landscape within which he is immersed. The use of watercolour imparts a sense of spontaneity to the work, with the softness of the forms resulting from the use of this medium conveying a feeling of the gentle movement of the leaves and grass of the open landscape depicted. Pissarro’s ability to capture the immediate impression of his surroundings, a fundamental aspect of Impressionism, powerfully demonstrates his centrality within the movement. Please refer to department for condition report