Statue of Henri-IV, Morning, Winter Sunlight (First Series)

In November 1900, as the World's Fair on the banks of the Seine was closing, Camille Pissarro, then 70, moved into a rented apartment at 28 place Dauphine, on the western tip of the Île de la Cité. A chronic eye infection made working outdoors in wind and dust painful, so he painted from his corner windows. Over the next three winters he made some five dozen views from there, and this is one of the first. Below him is the little park called the Vert-Galant, then the Pont Neuf, and across the river the long front of the Louvre. The bronze king on his pedestal is younger than he looks. The first statue of Henri IV went up in 1614 and was pulled down in 1792, during the Revolution. The one Pissarro watched each morning was cast in 1818, partly from melted-down statues of Napoleon.