Camille
Pissarro

Camille Pissarro, Femme portant une Corbeille, relief zincography, ca. 1900

Paysanne portant une Corbeille

Delteil-Cailac 196*

relief zincography, circa 1900, on thin cream wove paper (printed expediently on the verso of an illustration taken from the popular English satirical magazine, Punch, dated September 1885), a very fine trial proof impression of this exceedingly rare print, signed (initialed) in pencil by the artist, with wide margins, traces of an old tape mount in the corners on the verso, otherwise in very good condition

 
P. 120x122 mm.**, S. 287x222 mm.

Provenance: a private Parisian collection

This exceedingly rare print is the result of experimental trials in new printmaking media undertaken in collaboration with Lucien Pissarro, who had been working on a series of wood engravings (after drawings by his father, Camille).  These were first published in a small portfolio, Travaux des Champs, in London, by the Vale Press, in 1894.  According to Jean Cailac, the zinc plate was bitten with acid, protected by varnish, and given a resinous grain, much like an etching technique, except that it is the relief surface of the zinc that is inked and printed.

The print is tentatively dated by Jean Cailac to 1900, but he adds that these printmaking experiments may be dated to the summer that Lucien spent in Eragny between July and August 1895.Pissaro, Paysanne portant une Corbeille, rehaussée

We only know of one equivalent lifetime impression, signed by the artist, with added watercolor rework (which was originally described by Jean Cailac, right), seen on auction in Paris, in 2016: 

  -  https://www.ader-paris.fr/lot/77368/6601079***

as well as two other later impressions (both apparently printed by Lucien Pissarro), and which are much less refined:

  -  https://estampesmartinez.com/collections/pissarro-camille/products/paysanne-portant-une-corbeille-c-1900  and

  -  https://www.debaecque.fr/lot/25847/5851868?offset=50&


*  Undescribed by Delteil, it was added to the revised edition following Jean Cailac's entries in the Pissarro Atelier sales; see Loys Delteil, Jean Cailac. Camille Pissarro: L'Oeuvre Gravé et Lithographié, Alan Wofsy Fine Arts, 1999

** Jean Cailac gives the dimensions as 115x125mm (width by height, as in Delteil), though we have measured the dimensions of the visible imprint as above (height by width)...

*** And later on offer, again, in 2017:
https://catalogue.swanngalleries.com/Lots/auction-lot/CAMILLE-PISSARRO-Paysanne-portant-une-corbeille?saleno=2437&lotNo=137&refNo=730196