The Tuileries Gardens, Spring Morning, Overcast Weather

The flat Pissarro took on the rue de Rivoli at the end of 1898 came with a view that already had a history. In 1876 Claude Monet had painted the Tuileries garden from a window at number 198 on the same street, in the flat of the collector Victor Chocquet, and that picture now hangs in the Musée Marmottan in Paris. Pissarro was at number 204, only a few doors along, looking down on nearly the same stretch of lawns and gravel walks. He stayed through the first half of 1899 and painted the garden over and over as the light and the season changed. Here it is spring, early in the day, under a low overcast sky, with the trees in fresh leaf. He signed and dated the canvas 1899 in the lower right corner.