The Seine at Rouen, Saint-Sever

Pissarro reached Rouen on 20 January 1896 and took a room above the quay. He was 65, and a tear duct that kept becoming infected had made long days outdoors in wind and dust a risk, so for years he had been painting cities through windows. What he chose to look at from this one was the far bank, Saint-Sever, the working side of the river, with its wharves, sheds and chimneys. Monet had been in the same town three years earlier, painting the front of the cathedral. Here the smoke drifts up into the weather until the two are hard to separate, tugs and barges moving through it, and Pissarro came back to the same stretch of water for a second campaign that autumn.