Afternoon Sunlight on the Meadow at Éragny

This is a clos, a walled meadow, at Éragny, the village on the river Epte where Pissarro had been living for three years. He signed and dated it at the lower right, 1887, and the full title the museum uses names the season, spring sun in the meadow. Young trees with pale trunks stand in the grass with their shadows lying beside them, a long white wall closes off the field, and beyond it rise red roofs and brick chimneys. A woman walks across with a load in each hand. The whole surface is built from small separate touches of colour, the way he was working in those years. In May 1906 it was auctioned at the Galerie Georges Petit in Paris with the collection of Charles Viguier, and it came to the Louvre in 1937.