Bather in the Woods

The Artist and the Nude: In a letter of July 3, 1893, Pissarro mentioned his interest in depicting female bathers, but observed that he was short of funds and had no idea how he would find a model.[1] This was an understandable concern for a painter who was chronically short of money and lived in Eragny, an old-fashioned community where women rarely bared their arms or ankles, and certainly not their naked bodies. Even so, he found one or two models, as there are drawings and paintings of nudes, some of which must have been observed, as well as a large group of prints (in The Met’s collection, see 21.60.4, 23.64.1, 23.64.2, 26.46.11, and 47.90.2). These show women singly or in groups, nude or partly clothed, usually either beside a stream or knee deep in the water. Pissarro was still making lithographs of bathers in 1897. The various related works show him revisiting a subject over four years in a wide variety of media.

A Pissarro Model: Despite the challenges, Pissarro succeeded in posing a nude at this time, as a succession of closely related works attests. In a large, undated drawing in colored chalks, a standing nude woman is seen from behind, turned slightly to left, her head inclined, her arms drawn close to her body (Full-length Standing Nude Woman Viewed from Behind, ca. 1894, Fitzwilliam Museum, Cambridge, PD.51-1947). Her hair is tied up in a knot and she has sloping shoulders, long thin arms and legs, and large feet. The same person, fair, with light brown hair, assuming a similar pose—with adjustments to the right arm and the angle of the feet—is the subject of an 1895 painting in which she stands in a room that could be an artist’s studio, Interior with Nude from the Back (private collection).[2] A window loosely draped with a white cloth lets in light from the left, while, to the right, her clothing is draped over a chair. The figure appears again in a similar pose, standing on a chemise she holds with her left hand, as one of a group of three bathers beside a stream in an upright landscape dated 1896, Bathing Women (Hiroshima Museum of Art, B 17).

The Painting: Given her long, thin limbs, pale skin, and light hair arranged in a knot, it is likely that the model who posed for Pissarro as a standing nude also sat for, or inspired, the figure in the 1895 Bather in the Woods. Her outsized feet rest on a patch of grass by the water, and her clothes lie beside her under a tree. Seated on a bank, she leans forward, straightening her arms and hands to dry the calf of her leg with a cloth. Although, by this time, Pissarro had abandoned his experiments with Pointillism, the colors, predominantly greens, are methodically applied over the whole surface to create a studied effect. Even the figure is partly modeled in green. Faint lines marking the contours of the body show through the light-colored pigments. Attention is given to stippling the water and foliage in a variety of small strokes; softly lit passages are balanced against darker ones.

The eighteenth-century master François Boucher, Pissarro’s predecessor Jean-François Millet, and his younger colleague Paul Cézanne have been proposed as possible sources of inspiration for this atypical nude. Bather in the Woods was the first work by the artist to enter The Met’s collection, as part of the bequest of Louisine Havemeyer (1855–1929) in 1929. It was one of six Pissarros she had owned with her husband, Horace O. Havemeyer (1847–1907), another of which, The Harvest, Pontoise (La Récolte, Pontoise), is in the Robert Lehman Collection (The Met 1975.1.197).

Related Works: Pissarro first presented a figure in the same pose, the shallow stream, and a similar landscape background to The Met’s picture in an oil sketch dated 1894, Woman Washing Her Feet in a Brook (Indianapolis Museum of Art, 48.17), in which a young woman with darker hair is fully clothed. She wears a mauve blouse and a black skirt over voluminous white petticoats which spread around her and shield her upper legs. Blue stockings and clogs lie on the grass beside her. A larger, heavily pigmented, stylized finished painting showing a similarly clothed figure and the same setting is dated 1895 (Art Institute of Chicago, 1999.364). The lighter-haired model in the Chicago picture has a bronze-colored blouse, her dark skirt is folded back to reveal a lining, and, again, a petticoat covers her legs to the knees. The stockings and clogs reappear. Pissarro referred to the Chicago picture when writing to his son Lucien (1863–1944) on November 22, 1894, that a canvas of the same size showing “a little peasant girl dipping her feet in the water” was nearly finished.[3] A drawing of a woman in red and black chalks, Study of a Young Woman Bathing Her Legs (Ashmolean Museum, Oxford, WA1952.6.360), a preparatory study for the Chicago painting, omits the lining of the skirt to expose the upper left leg.[4] A monotype offers a simplification of the composition (ca. 1894–95, The Met 47.90.3).

Other Nudes: A slight drawing focusing on the arrangement of the nude and the foliage on the left bank of the stream appeared at Sotheby’s, London, on July 29, 2020, as lot 459. A gouache of a very pale, heavy figure with dark hair seated on a bank by the water in a simplified landscape, her clothes by her side, is in The Burrell Collection, Glasgow. Additionally, a small canvas of a blond nude partly draped in a chemise standing under trees by a river (National Gallery of Art, Washington, 1963.10.54), signed and dated 1895, offers a more relaxed and engaging interpretation of the typically Impressionist subject. Pissarro’s interpretations suggest how flexible he was, with the capacity to vary his style at any moment.

Katharine Baetjer 2022

[1] “Je serai arrêté par l’impossibilité de me procurer un modèle.” Camille Pissarro, Letter to Lucien Pissarro, July 3, 1893, in Janine Bailly-Herzberg, ed., Correspondance de Camille Pissarro, 3/1891–94, 1988, p. 341.
[2] Pissarro and Durand-Ruel Snollaerts 2005, vol. 3, no. 1064, colorpl.
[3] Bailly-Herzberg, 3/1891–94, 1988, p. 513, where Pissarro described “une Petite Paysanne qui trempe ses pieds dans l’eau, toile de trente.”
[4] Pissarro and Durand-Ruel-Snollaerts 2005, vol. 3, p. 678, colorpl.

Inscription: Signed and dated (lower left): C. Pissarro.1895

[Alphonse Portier, Paris, 1895; sold for the artist on October 20, 1895, for Fr 1,800 to Hayashi]; Tadamasa Hayashi, Tokyo and Paris (1895–d. 1906; his estate sale, American Art Galleries, New York, January 8–9, 1913, no. 146, as "Baigneuse seule," for $4,200 to Durand-Ruel for Havemeyer); Mrs. H. O. (Louisine W.) Havemeyer, New York (1913–d. 1929; cat., 1931, p. 161)

New York. The Metropolitan Museum of Art. "The H. O. Havemeyer Collection," March 10–November 2, 1930, no. 90 [2nd ed., 1958, no. 177].

New York. Wildenstein. "Nude in Painting," November 1–December 1, 1956, no. 28.

Little Rock. Arkansas Arts Center. "Five Centuries of European Painting," May 16–October 26, 1963, unnumbered cat. (p. 47).

Iowa City. University of Iowa Gallery of Art. "Impressionism and Its Roots," November 8–December 6, 1964, no. 40.

New York. Wildenstein & Co., Inc. "C. Pissarro," March 25–May 1, 1965, no. 59.

Tokyo National Museum. "Treasured Masterpieces of The Metropolitan Museum of Art," August 10–October 1, 1972, no. 100.

Kyoto Municipal Museum of Art. "Treasured Masterpieces of The Metropolitan Museum of Art," October 8–November 26, 1972, no. 100.

Naples. Museo di Capodimonte. "Capolavori Impressionisti dei Musei Americani," December 3, 1986–February 1, 1987, no. 37.

Milan. Pinacoteca di Brera. "Capolavori Impressionisti dei Musei Americani," March 4–May 10, 1987, no. 37.

New York. The Metropolitan Museum of Art. "Splendid Legacy: The Havemeyer Collection," March 27–June 20, 1993, no. A432.

THIS WORK MAY NOT BE LENT.

Camille Pissarro. Letters to Lucien Pissarro. March 14, October 16, 20, 1895 [published in Janine Bailly-Herzberg, ed., "Correspondance de Camille Pissarro: Tome 4/ 1895–1898," Paris, 1989, pp. 44–45, 101–5, nos. 1118, 1161, 1162], mentions that Portier sold it to Hayashi for Fr 1,800.

Camille Pissarro. Letter to Georges Pissarro. October 21, 1895 [published in Janine Bailly-Herzberg, ed., "Correspondance de Camille Pissarro: Tome 4/ 1895–1898," Paris, 1989, p. 105, no. 1163], remarks that Portier sold it for half of what Pissarro had hoped for.

H. O. Havemeyer Collection: Catalogue of Paintings, Prints, Sculpture and Objects of Art. n.p., 1931, p. 161.

Ludovic Rodo Pissarro and Lionello Venturi. Camille Pissarro, son art—son œuvre. reprint ed. 1989. Paris, 1939, vol. 1, p. 206, no. 904; vol. 2, pl. 183, no. 904.

John Rewald. Camille Pissarro, 1830–1903. New York, 1954, unpaginated, colorpls. 28–29 (overall and detail).

Josephine L. Allen and Elizabeth E. Gardner. A Concise Catalogue of the European Paintings in The Metropolitan Museum of Art. New York, 1954, p. 78.

Five Centuries of European Painting. Exh. cat., Arkansas Arts Center. Little Rock, 1963, p. 47, ill.

Charles Sterling and Margaretta M. Salinger. French Paintings: A Catalogue of the Collection of The Metropolitan Museum of Art. Vol. 3, XIX–XX Centuries. New York, 1967, pp. 19–20, ill.

Christopher Lloyd. "Camille Pissarro and Hans Holbein the Younger." Burlington Magazine 117 (November 1975), p. 725, fig. 43.

Richard R. Brettell and Christopher Lloyd. A Catalogue of the Drawings by Camille Pissarro in the Ashmolean Museum, Oxford. Oxford, 1980, p. 186, under no. 259.

William R. Johnston. The Nineteenth Century Paintings in the Walters Art Gallery. Baltimore, 1982, p. 75.

Richard R. Brettell. An Impressionist Legacy: The Collection of the Sara Lee Corporation. New York, 1986, p. 48, claims that "Young Woman Bathing Her Feet" (P&V no. 903) in the Sara Lee Collection was conceived by Pissarro as a pendant, in an effort to rework Goya's nude and clothed majas (Museo del Prado, Madrid).

John House. "Camille Pissarro's Idea of Unity." Studies on Camille Pissarro. Ed. Christopher Lloyd. London, 1986, pp. 25, 33 n. 16.

Richard Thomson. Camille Pissarro: Impressionism, Landscape and Rural Labour. Exh. cat., City Museum and Art Gallery. London, 1990, pp. 89–90, colorpl. 109.

Katharine Baetjer. European Paintings in The Metropolitan Museum of Art by Artists Born Before 1865: A Summary Catalogue. New York, 1995, p. 440, ill.

Claire Durand-Ruel Snollaerts in Joachim Pissarro and Claire Durand-Ruel Snollaerts. Pissarro: Critical Catalogue of Paintings. Milan, 2005, vol. 1, pp. 376, 391, 395–96, 401, 410, 416, 419; vol. 3, pp. 678–79, 955, 958, no. 1062, ill. (color).

Richard R. Brettell. Pissarro's People. Exh. cat., Sterling and Francine Clark Art Institute, Williamstown, Mass. San Francisco, 2011, pp. 278, 280, fig. 236 (color), contrary to his earlier argument (Brettell 1986), notes that "Woman Bathing Her Feet in a Brook" (1894/95, Art Institute of Chicago) and this work are different sizes, have never been exhibited together, and were never conceived as a pair.

Richard R. Brettell in Pissarro Paintings and Works on Paper at the Art Institute of Chicago. Ed. Gloria Groom and Genevieve Westerby. Chicago, 2015, paras. 10–12, under no. 14, fig. 14.9 (color) [https://publications.artic.edu/pissarro/reader/paintingsandpaper/section/8], compares it to Millet’s "The Goose Girl" (1863, Walters Art Museum, Baltimore); notes that its precise relationship to the clothed variants of the composition is difficult to ascertain but that "The Foot Bath" (1894, Indianapolis Museum of Art) was clearly the instigator of the sequence; suggests it was largely painted in 1894 at the same moment as "Woman Bathing Her Feet in a Brook" (1894/95, Art Institute of Chicago).

Simon Kelly in Jean-François Millet: Sowing the Seeds of Modern Art. Ed. Simon Kelly and Maite van Dijk. Exh. cat., Van Gogh Museum, Amsterdam. Bussum, The Netherlands, 2019, p. 74, fig. 59 (color).

Laura D. Corey and Alice Cooney Frelinghuysen. "Visions of Collecting." Making The Met, 1870–2020. Ed. Andrea Bayer with Laura D. Corey. Exh. cat., The Metropolitan Museum of Art. New York, 2020, pp. 139, 265 n. 48.

This work may not be lent.