The Pink Chalet, Hamlet of Cœur-Volant, Louveciennes

In the spring of 1870 Pissarro had been living at Louveciennes, a village on the hills west of Paris, for about a year, and he painted the lanes and gardens close to his house. Here a tree in white blossom rises through the middle of the canvas, above low rows of plants in a kitchen garden cut by a sandy path. Behind them, half hidden by trunks and branches, stands the house of the title, a pink chalet with white window frames and two red chimneys. Another red roof shows beside it, and a wooded slope rises beyond. The signature and the date, 1870, are painted into the lower corner. A doctor, Auguste-Henri Dalineau, owned the picture until his collection was auctioned at the Hôtel Drouot in Paris on 1 February 1901.