The Kitchen in Piette's House, Montfoucault

In April 1874 the painters soon nicknamed Impressionists held their own exhibition in Paris, with no jury and no prizes. Pissarro hung five canvases, and the venture made almost no money. That same month his young daughter Jeanne died.

In the autumn he went to Montfoucault in Mayenne, a farm belonging to Ludovic Piette, a painter and landowner who had been lending him money and a roof for years. He stayed for weeks and worked on plain country subjects.

He painted the house from outside in cool blues and greys, then this kitchen inside it, with yellows and a warmer blue. The two canvases ended up in different American cities, the farmyard in Buffalo and the interior in Detroit.