Woman and Child at the Well

Painting and Sculpture of Europe

1882

Camille Pissarro
French, 1830-1903

By the 1880s, Camille Pissarro, like most of his Impressionist colleagues, sought an alternative to the style he had employed over the previous decade, deciding to focus on figures rather than landscapes. Of the 36 paintings he showed at the seventh Impressionist exhibition, in the spring of 1882, 27 were figural. Woman and Child at the Well is one of a series of works depicting peasant girls taking a break from their chores, their poses and gestures suggesting narratives that remain ambiguous. As the model for the boy in this composition, Pissarro used his fourth son, Ludovic-Rodolphe, who was four years old at the time.

Status: Currently Off View
Department: Painting and Sculpture of Europe

Artist: Camille Pissarro
Title: Woman and Child at the Well
Place: France (Artist's nationality)
Date: 1882
Medium: Oil on canvas
Inscriptions: Inscribed lower left.: C.Pissarro / 82
Dimensions: 81.5 × 66.4 cm (32 1/8 × 26 1/8 in.)
Credit Line: Potter Palmer Collection
Reference Number: 1922.436
IIIF Manifest The International Image Interoperability Framework (IIIF) represents a set of open standards that enables rich access to digital media from libraries, archives, museums, and other cultural institutions around the world. Learn more.: https://api.artic.edu/api/v1/artworks/81552/manifest.json

Paul Labarrière, “Exposition Pissarro, 9 boulevard de la Madeleine,” Journal des artistes, June 1, 1883, p. 3.
Henry Morel, “Camille Pissarro,” Le réveil, June 24, 1883, p. 1.
Possibly American Art Association, Works in Oil and Pastel by the Impressionists of Paris, exh. cat. (J. J. Little/American Art Galleries, 1886), p. 26, cat. 145.
Possibly American Art Association, Works in Oil and Pastel by the Impressionists of Paris, exh. cat. (National Academy of Design, 1886), p. 42, cat. 145.
American Association for the Promotion and Encouragement of Art, Celebrated Paintings by Great French Masters, exh. cat. (National Academy of Design, 1887), p. 42, cat. 171.
Art Institute of Chicago, “Accessions and Loans,” Bulletin of the Art Institute of Chicago 16, 3 (May 1922), p. 47.
Art Institute of Chicago, Handbook of Sculpture, Architecture, and Paintings, pt. 2, Paintings (Art Institute of Chicago, 1922), p. 69, cat. 840.
Art Institute of Chicago, A Guide to the Paintings in the Permanent Collection (Art Institute of Chicago, 1925), p. 148, cat. 840.
Art Institute of Chicago, A Guide to the Paintings in the Permanent Collection (Art Institute of Chicago, 1932), p. 167, cat. 22.436.
Daniel Catton Rich, “Französische Impressionisten im Art Institute zu Chicago,” Pantheon: Monatsschrift für Freunde und Sammler der Kunst 11, 3 (Mar. 1933), pp. 78, 79 (ill.). Translated by C. C. H. Drechsel as “French Impressionists in the Art Institute of Chicago,” Pantheon/Cicerone (Mar. 1933), p. 18.
Art Institute of Chicago, Catalogue of “A Century of Progress”: Exhibition of Paintings and Sculpture, 1934, ed. Daniel Catton Rich, exh. cat. (Art Institute of Chicago, 1934), p. 43, cat. 261.
Art Institute of Chicago, A Brief Illustrated Guide to the Collections (Art Institute of Chicago, 1935), p. 29.
George Slocombe, “Papa Pissarro,” Coronet 4, 1 (May 1, 1938), p. 21 (ill.).
Ludovic Rodo Pissarro and Lionello Venturi, Camille Pissarro: Son art—son oeuvre, vol. 1, Texte (P. Rosenberg, 1939), pp. 163, cat. 574; 336.
Ludovic Rodo Pissarro and Lionello Venturi, Camille Pissarro: Son art—son oeuvre, vol. 2, Planche (P. Rosenberg, 1939), pl. 119, cat. 574.
Wildenstein, A Loan Exhibition of Paintings, Camille Pissarro, His Place in Art, For the Benefit of the Goddard Neighborhood Center, exh. cat. (Wildenstein, 1945), pp. 30, cat. 20 (ill.); 36.
Arts Club of Chicago, Catalogue of an Exhibition of Paintings by Camille Pissarro, exh. cat. (Arts Club of Chicago, 1946), cat. 7.
Art Institute of Chicago, Paintings in the Art Institute of Chicago: A Catalogue of the Picture Collection (Art Institute of Chicago, 1961), p. 359.
John Rewald, Camille Pissarro, The Library of Great Painters (Abrams, 1963), pp. 130–31 (ill.), 132.
Milton S. Fox, Camille Pissarro (Abrams, 1966), pp. 16–17 (ill.).
Philbrook Art Center, French and American Impressionism, Sponsored by Tulsa Collectors Group, exh. cat. (Philbrook Art Center, 1967), p. 9, cat. 11.
Dénes Pataky, Pissarro (Corvina Kiadó, 1972), p. 18, pl. 32.
Yoshikazu Iwasaki and Takeshi Kashiwa, Pissarro, Les peintres impressionistes 2 (Senshukai, 1978), pl. 22.
J. Patrice Marandel, The Art Institute of Chicago: Favorite Impressionist Paintings (Crown, 1979), pp. 18, 19 (ill.).
Musée Toulouse-Lautrec and Art Institute of Chicago, Trésors impressionnistes du Musée de Chicago, exh. cat. (Musée Toulouse-Lautrec, 1980), pp. 42, no. 24 (ill.); 68.
Christopher Lloyd, “Camille Pissarro,” Art International 25, 1–2 (Jan. 1982), p. 61 (ill.).
Isetan Museum of Art, Fukuoka Art Museum, Kyoto Municipal Museum of Art, Retrospective Camille Pissarro, international ed., exh. cat. (Art Life, 1984), front cover (detail); pp. 60, cat. 36 (ill.); 133–34.
Ministry of Culture; State Hermitage Museum; Pushkin State Museum of Fine Arts; Metropolitan Museum of Art, New York; and Art Institute of Chicago, Ot Delakrua do Matissa: Shedevry frantsuzskoi zhivopisi XIX–nachala XX veka, iz Muzeia Metropoliten v N’iu-Iorke i Khudozhestvennogo Instituta v Chikago [From Delacroix to Matisse: Masterpieces of French Painting of the Nineteenth to the Beginning of the Twentieth Century from the Metropolitan Museum of Art, New York, and the Art Institute of Chicago], trans. from English by Iu. A. Kleiner and A. A. Zhukov, exh. cat. (Avrora, 1988), pp. 74–75, cat. 26 (ill.).
Richard Thomson, Camille Pissarro: Impressionism, Landscape and Rural Labour, exh. cat. (South Bank Centre/Herbert Press, 1990), pp. 56; 57; 58; 62–63, fig. 65 (ill.); 124, cat. 28.
Art Institute of Chicago, Treasures of 19th- and 20th-Century Painting: The Art Institute of Chicago, with an introduction by James N. Wood (Art Institute of Chicago/Abbeville, 1993), p. 83 (ill.).
Joachim Pissarro, Camille Pissarro (Abrams, 1993), pp. 161; 172, fig. 187.
Joachim Pissarro and Stephanie Rachum, Camille Pissarro: Impressionist Innovator, exh. cat. (Israel Museum, Jerusalem, 1994), pp. 140; 149, cat. 66 (ill.).
Ruth Feldman, Van Gogh to Picasso: The Moshe and Sara Mayer Collection, ed. Nehama Guralnik, exh. cat. (Tel Aviv Museum of Art, 1999), p. 32, fig. 6.
Art Institute of Chicago, Impressionism and Post-Impressionism in the Art Institute of Chicago, selected by James N. Wood (Art Institute of Chicago/Hudson Hills, 2000), p. 69 (ill.).
Robert L. Herbert et al., Seurat and the Making of “La Grande Jatte,” exh. cat. (Art Institute of Chicago/University of California Press, 2004), pp. 103, cat. 103 (ill.); 105.
Joachim Pissarro and Claire Durand-Ruel Snollaerts with Alexia de Buffévent and Annie Champié, Pissarro: Catalogue critique des peintures/Critical Calalogue of Paintings, vol. 1, trans. Mark Hutchinson and Michael Taylor (Skira/Wildenstein Institute, 2005), pp. 362, 363, 378, 384, 398, 405, 408, 411, 413, 417, 425, 430–31 (detail).
Joachim Pissarro and Claire Durand-Ruel Snollaerts with Alexia de Buffévent and Annie Champié, Pissarro: Catalogue critique des peintures/Critical Catalogue of Paintings, vol. 2, trans. Mark Hutchinson and Michael Taylor (Skira/Wildenstein Institute, 2005), p. 459, cat. 688 (ill.).
Gloria Groom and Douglas Druick, with the assistance of Dorota Chudzicka and Jill Shaw, The Impressionists: Master Paintings from the Art Institute of Chicago, exh. cat. (Art Institute of Chicago/Kimbell Art Museum, 2008), pp. 98 (detail); 99, cat. 43 (ill.). Simultaneously published as Gloria Groom and Douglas Druick, with the assistance of Dorota Chudzicka and Jill Shaw, The Age of Impressionism at the Art Institute of Chicago (Art Institute of Chicago/Yale University Press, 2008), pp. 98 (detail); 99, cat. 43 (ill.).
Richard Brettell, Pissarro’s People, exh. cat. (Fine Arts Museums of San Francisco/Sterling and Francine Clark Art Institute/Prestel, 2011), pp. 180–81, fig. 137; 303.
“Cat. 11: Woman and Child at the Well, 1882,” in Pissarro Paintings and Works on Paper at the Art Institute of Chicago, eds. Gloria Groom and Genevieve Westerby (Art Institute of Chicago, 2015), https://publications.artic.edu/pissarro/reader/paintingsandpaper/section/8L.

Tours, Société des Amis des Arts de la Touraine, [paintings lent by Durand-Ruel], [Sept.–Oct.], 1882, no cat. found.
Paris, 9, boulevard de la Madeleine, Oeuvres de C. Pissarro, May 1–25, 1883, cat. 10, as Le Puits.
Possibly New York, American Art Galleries, Works in Oil and Pastel by the Impressionists of Paris, Apr. 10–28, 1886, cat. 145; New York, National Academy of Design, May 25–June 30, 1886, as Woman and Child.
New York, National Academy of Design, Celebrated Paintings by Great French Masters, May 25–June 30, 1887, cat. 171, as Women at a Well.
Art Institute of Chicago, “A Century of Progress”: Loan Exhibition of Paintings and Sculpture for 1934, June 1–Oct. 31, 1934, cat. 261.
New York, Wildenstein, Camille Pissarro, His Place in Art, Oct. 24–Nov. 24, 1945, cat. 20 (ill.).
Arts Club of Chicago, Paintings by Camille Pissarro, Jan. 8–30, 1946, cat. 7.
University of Chicago, Lexington Hall, Mar. 4–15, 1957, no cat.
Tulsa, Philbrook Art Center, French and American Impressionism, Oct. 2–Nov. 26, 1967, cat. 11.
Albi, Musée Toulouse-Lautrec, Trésors impressionnistes du Musée de Chicago, June 27–Aug. 31, 1980, cat. 24 (ill.).
Tokyo, Isetan Museum of Art, Retrospective Camille Pissarro, Mar. 9¬–Apr. 9, 1984, cat. 36 (ill.); Fukuoka Art Museum, Apr. 25–May 20, 1984; Kyoto Municipal Museum of Art, May 26–July 1, 1984.
Leningrad [St. Petersburg], Hermitage Museum, Ot Delakrua do Matissa: shedevry frantsuzskoĭ zhivopici XIX-nachala XX veka, iz Muieia Metropoliten v Niu-Ĭorke i Khudozhestvennogo Instituta v Chikago [From Delacroix to Matisse: Great Paintings From the XIX century to the Beginning of the XXth century From Metropolitan Museum of Art in New York and the Art Institute of Chicago], March 15-May 19, 1988, cat. 26; Moscow, Pushkin Museum, June 10-July 30, 1988.
Birmingham City Museum and Art Gallery, Camille Pissarro: Impressionism, Landscape, and Rural Labour, March 8–Apil. 22, 1990, cat. 28 (ill.); Glasgow, Burrell Collection, May 4–June 17, 1990.
Jerusalem, Israel Museum, Weisbord Exhibition Pavilion, Camille Pissarro: Impressionist Innovator, October 11, 1994–February 9, 1995, cat. 66 (ill.); New York, Jewish Museum, February 26–July 16, 1995 (Jerusalem only).
Art Institute of Chicago, Seurat and the Making of ‘La Grande Jatte,’ June 16-September 19, 2004, cat. 103 (ill.).
Fort Worth, Tex., Kimbell Art Museum, The Impressionists: Master Paintings from the Art Institute of Chicago, June 29–Nov. 2, 2008, cat. 43 (ill.).
Williamstown, Mass., Sterling and Francine Clark Art Institute, Pissarro’s People, June 12–Oct. 2, 2011, no cat. no. (ill.); San Francisco, Legion of Honor, Oct. 22, 2011–Jan. 22, 2012.

The artist (d. 1903); sold to Durand-Ruel, Paris, August 5, 1882 [this and the five following per Pissarro and Snollaerts 2005]. Durand-Ruel, New York, by August 5, 1882; sold to William Loring Andrews, New York, February 27, 1888; sold back to Durand-Ruel, New York, May 21, 1891; sold to Cyrus J. Lawrence, New York, December 19, 1891; sold back to Durand-Ruel, New York, January 2, 1892; sold to Potter Palmer (d. 1902), Chicago, March 2, 1892, for $750 [per Durand-Ruel Archives, New York stock book 1888-1892, no. 860, as Femme au puits, as confirmed by Caroline Durand-Ruel Godfroy, Durand-Ruel Archives, to the Art Institute of Chicago, Dec. 13, 1994, curatorial object file]; by descent to the Potter family, Chicago; given to the Art Institute of Chicago, 1922.

Cat. 11 Woman and Child at the Well, 1882

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