Paysanne au chapeau de paille

By 1880 Pissarro had turned from the orchards and lanes around Pontoise to the people working in them, and for several years after that the figure carried his pictures. He sent 14 of them to the Impressionist exhibition of 1882, this one included, listed there as Washerwoman, a study. He did not name her. An audience in Paris expected a canvas this size to show someone who had paid for it, and Pissarro gave that scale to a farm girl in a straw hat with a red ribbon, her eyes off to one side. He signed and dated it in the lower right corner, C. Pissarro 81.