Orchard in Bloom, Louveciennes

1872

Oil on canvas, 45.1 × 54.9 cm. National Gallery of Art, Washington

A small spring landscape with a tree in white blossom, a plowed field and two farm workers. Pissarro sent it to the 1874 show as Le verger (The Orchard).

Pissarro paints a working field and a plain fruit tree, not a famous or scenic view. The Impressionists chose ordinary, lived-in country like this.
Listed first among his entries, as no. 136; the museum suggests personal reasons may explain why.
Painted at Louveciennes in spring 1872, months after the family returned from wartime London.
Short dabs build the blossoms, and the sky shifts from pale gray to strong blue.
Bought by Ailsa Mellon Bruce in 1960, it came to the National Gallery in 1970.

Pissarro came home in late 1871 to find much of his stored work lost. The museum reads the flowering tree as a sign of recovery.

Image: National Gallery of Art Open Access · CC0