Cabbage Field, Pontoise

Pissarro walked only a few minutes from his house in Pontoise to paint this, to the flat fields by the river on the edge of town known as Le Chou. It was autumn 1873. The fruit tree on the left has dropped its leaves, the big trees on the hillside are still turning, and in front of them run rows of cabbages, with a woman standing among them and another figure bent over the crop. The Madrid museum identifies it with a picture he showed the next spring at the first Impressionist exhibition in Paris. In his review the critic Jules Castagnary, broadly a supporter of the group, regretted Pissarro's deplorable fondness for market gardens and his readiness to paint cabbages or any other kitchen vegetable. The year 1873 is painted next to his signature in the lower right corner.