Quai du Pothuis, bords de l'Oise

Pissarro painted this from his own doorstep. In 1882 he was living at number 85 bis on this very quay in Pontoise, the small town on the Oise northwest of Paris where he had worked, on and off, for years. The house he rented stood right by the figures strolling in the foreground. Across the bend of the river lies the Ile du Pothuis, and off to the right the old town climbs its hill. Pissarro cared less for the picturesque than for an ordinary working riverbank, a moored boat, a couple of walkers, the pale sun on the water. Around this time his brushwork was tightening into the small, deliberate touches that would soon pull him toward the younger neo-impressionists. He left the quay for good late that same year.