Winter Landscape at Louveciennes

Henri Rouart was an engineer who made his fortune in industry, painted in his spare time, and bought his friends' pictures for decades. Degas had been at school with him. Rouart died in January 1912, and that December his collection was auctioned over three days at the Galerie Manzi-Joyant in Paris. The sale made headlines, above all when a Degas of dancers at the barre went to the American collector Louisine Havemeyer for nearly half a million francs. Lot 261 was this small winter scene by Pissarro, painted at Louveciennes around 1870. Bare trees stand on a slope above the village, roofs and white walls show through the branches, a fence runs down the hill, and two figures pause under the trees, one standing and one sitting. The collector Antonin Personnaz bought it, and his receipt is dated 16 December 1912.