Camille Pissarro
The Fair Outside the Church Saint-Jacques, Dieppe1901

On view:

Geffen Galleries

Impressionist oil painting of a crowded town square with a carousel, Gothic cathedral at left, and rows of buildings under a cloudy sky

Artist or Maker: Camille Pissarro
Title: The Fair Outside the Church Saint-Jacques, Dieppe
Culture: French
Date Made: 1901
Medium: Oil on canvas
Dimensions: Canvas: 28 3/4 × 36 1/2 in. (73.03 × 92.71 cm) Frame: 40 3/4 × 47 1/2 × 5 1/4 in. (103.51 × 120.65 × 13.34 cm)
Credit Line: Gift of A. Jerrold Perenchio
Accession Number: M.2025.64.13
Classification: Paintings
Collecting Area: European Painting and Sculpture
Curatorial Notes: Painted two years before his death, The Fair outside the Church Saint-Jacques, Dieppe is one of nine canvases the artist created from a window in the Hôtel du Commerce in Dieppe. In the final decade of his life, Pissarro made nearly a dozen series of urban views, where the conditions of air and sea took precedence over variety of subject. In these serial depictions, it was Claude Monet’s images of Rouen Cathedral, painted from 1892 to 1904, that had the greatest impact on Pissarro. But rather than Monet’s interest in capturing the different effects of light and color on the same motif, Pissarro was drawn to variations caused by movement as well as light. The result is a group of images infused with an overall sense of change—in clouds, in activity, in people, in color. This impression of flux, which has been linked to the aesthetic theories of Charles Baudelaire, who described the modern urban experience as transient and ever changing, is a constant throughout Pissarro’s series paintings, along with his ability to lead the various details in the picture to a coherent crescendo. In The Fair, the carousel, figures, architectural details, and clouds come together in a “relation d’accord,” or harmony, as the artist himself termed it. “I can only see patches . . . a great problem to resolve is to bring everything, even the tiniest details of the picture, within the harmony of the whole,” he wrote.

It is worth noting that the matte finish and the topography of the paint are as the artist intended. This is because the canvas has never been lined (attached to another piece of canvas with an adhesive and usually a process involving heat) or varnished, as were the majority of paintings during this time. On the reverse is the stamp of Pissarro’s canvas merchant, as the work is painted on a standard, pre-stretched size that he used throughout his series paintings.

2024
Provenance: Édouard Chastel (sale, Paris, Hôtel Drouot, 13 June 1903, lot 16, probably withdrawn).(1,2) [Galerie Bernheim-Jeune, purchased 16 November 1911, sold 13 May 1913].(3) Adolphe Strauss (possibly Adolphe Jacob Strauss [1859–1925]) (sale, Paris, Hôtel Drouot, 1 March 1926, lot 55, to); Stéphane Chapelier (1884–1966), Chatou, France.(4) Liechti, Basel, Switzerland, c. 1957.5 Dr. Barell, Basel, Switzerland.(5) Anonymous (sale, London, Sotheby Parke Bernet & Co., 2 December 1981, lot 11, to); A. J. Perenchio (1930–2017), Los Angeles, gifted 2025 to; Los Angeles County Museum of Art
Footnotes
(1) Durand-Ruel, Paris, is included in the provenance of Sotheby Parke Bernet & Co., London, Important Impressionist and Modern Paintings and Sculpture, 2 December 1981, lot 11. However, Durand-Ruel has found no information about the picture in their archives (document prepared by Flavie and Paul-Louis Durand-Ruel for Leah Lehmbeck, 8 December 2015).
(2) This is likely the father of the painter Roger Chastel (1897–1981), Édouard-Ferdinand Chastel, a Parisian banker and collector of Camille Pissarro. The Getty Research Institute’s copy of the Chastel sale catalogue is hand-annotated “N’a pas passe[?] à la vente” indicating that the lot was withdrawn. The Commissairepriseur Paul Chevallier’s Procès-verbal seems to verify this, as lot 16 is not included in the items sold in this sale.
(3) According to Bernheim-Jeune for the stock number 19043, with the title “La Foire autour de l’église Saint-Jacques, Dieppe” (letter from Guy-Patrice Dauberville to Leah Lehmbeck, 10 February 2016). The stock number is inscribed on the stretcher bar on the reverse of the painting.
(4) Handwritten annotations in the sales catalogues at the Getty Research Institute indicates a buyer “Chapelier.” This is likely Stéphane Chapelier, who married Marie Clergue (1878–1968). They lived in Chatou, the gathering place for many of the Impressionist painters, and together formed a collection including works by a number of Impressionists.
(5) Frau Dr. C. Barell, Basel, and Frau G. Liechti-Christian, Basel, are both listed in the long lender list at the front of the 1957 Bern, Kunstmuseum exhibition, Camille Pissarro 1830–1903, 19 January–10 March 1957. For no. 113 titled La foire autour de l’église Saint-Jacques, Dieppe, the painting’s owner is listed as “Privatbesitz Basel.” See Pissarro, et al, Pissarro: Critical Catalogue of Paintings, vol. 3, no. 1392, p. 854, where Dr. Barell (Basel, Switzerland) was owner following Liechti (c. 1957).
Selected Bibliography: Lehmbeck, Leah, ed. Impressionist and Modern Art: The A. Jerrold Perenchio Collection. Los Angeles: Los Angeles County Museum of Art; Munich: DelMonico Books/Prestel, 2016.
Copyright: photo © Fredrik Nilsen

Camille Pissarro
The Fair Outside the Church Saint-Jacques, Dieppe1901

On view:

Geffen Galleries

Artist or Maker: Camille Pissarro
Title: The Fair Outside the Church Saint-Jacques, Dieppe
Culture: French
Date Made: 1901
Medium: Oil on canvas
Dimensions: Canvas: 28 3/4 × 36 1/2 in. (73.03 × 92.71 cm) Frame: 40 3/4 × 47 1/2 × 5 1/4 in. (103.51 × 120.65 × 13.34 cm)
Credit Line: Gift of A. Jerrold Perenchio
Accession Number: M.2025.64.13
Classification: Paintings
Collecting Area: European Painting and Sculpture
Curatorial Notes: Painted two years before his death, The Fair outside the Church Saint-Jacques, Dieppe is one of nine canvases the artist created from a window in the Hôtel du Commerce in Dieppe. In the final decade of his life, Pissarro made nearly a dozen series of urban views, where the conditions of air and sea took precedence over variety of subject. In these serial depictions, it was Claude Monet’s images of Rouen Cathedral, painted from 1892 to 1904, that had the greatest impact on Pissarro. But rather than Monet’s interest in capturing the different effects of light and color on the same motif, Pissarro was drawn to variations caused by movement as well as light. The result is a group of images infused with an overall sense of change—in clouds, in activity, in people, in color. This impression of flux, which has been linked to the aesthetic theories of Charles Baudelaire, who described the modern urban experience as transient and ever changing, is a constant throughout Pissarro’s series paintings, along with his ability to lead the various details in the picture to a coherent crescendo. In The Fair, the carousel, figures, architectural details, and clouds come together in a “relation d’accord,” or harmony, as the artist himself termed it. “I can only see patches . . . a great problem to resolve is to bring everything, even the tiniest details of the picture, within the harmony of the whole,” he wrote.

It is worth noting that the matte finish and the topography of the paint are as the artist intended. This is because the canvas has never been lined (attached to another piece of canvas with an adhesive and usually a process involving heat) or varnished, as were the majority of paintings during this time. On the reverse is the stamp of Pissarro’s canvas merchant, as the work is painted on a standard, pre-stretched size that he used throughout his series paintings.

2024
Provenance: Édouard Chastel (sale, Paris, Hôtel Drouot, 13 June 1903, lot 16, probably withdrawn).(1,2) [Galerie Bernheim-Jeune, purchased 16 November 1911, sold 13 May 1913].(3) Adolphe Strauss (possibly Adolphe Jacob Strauss [1859–1925]) (sale, Paris, Hôtel Drouot, 1 March 1926, lot 55, to); Stéphane Chapelier (1884–1966), Chatou, France.(4) Liechti, Basel, Switzerland, c. 1957.5 Dr. Barell, Basel, Switzerland.(5) Anonymous (sale, London, Sotheby Parke Bernet & Co., 2 December 1981, lot 11, to); A. J. Perenchio (1930–2017), Los Angeles, gifted 2025 to; Los Angeles County Museum of Art
Footnotes
(1) Durand-Ruel, Paris, is included in the provenance of Sotheby Parke Bernet & Co., London, Important Impressionist and Modern Paintings and Sculpture, 2 December 1981, lot 11. However, Durand-Ruel has found no information about the picture in their archives (document prepared by Flavie and Paul-Louis Durand-Ruel for Leah Lehmbeck, 8 December 2015).
(2) This is likely the father of the painter Roger Chastel (1897–1981), Édouard-Ferdinand Chastel, a Parisian banker and collector of Camille Pissarro. The Getty Research Institute’s copy of the Chastel sale catalogue is hand-annotated “N’a pas passe[?] à la vente” indicating that the lot was withdrawn. The Commissairepriseur Paul Chevallier’s Procès-verbal seems to verify this, as lot 16 is not included in the items sold in this sale.
(3) According to Bernheim-Jeune for the stock number 19043, with the title “La Foire autour de l’église Saint-Jacques, Dieppe” (letter from Guy-Patrice Dauberville to Leah Lehmbeck, 10 February 2016). The stock number is inscribed on the stretcher bar on the reverse of the painting.
(4) Handwritten annotations in the sales catalogues at the Getty Research Institute indicates a buyer “Chapelier.” This is likely Stéphane Chapelier, who married Marie Clergue (1878–1968). They lived in Chatou, the gathering place for many of the Impressionist painters, and together formed a collection including works by a number of Impressionists.
(5) Frau Dr. C. Barell, Basel, and Frau G. Liechti-Christian, Basel, are both listed in the long lender list at the front of the 1957 Bern, Kunstmuseum exhibition, Camille Pissarro 1830–1903, 19 January–10 March 1957. For no. 113 titled La foire autour de l’église Saint-Jacques, Dieppe, the painting’s owner is listed as “Privatbesitz Basel.” See Pissarro, et al, Pissarro: Critical Catalogue of Paintings, vol. 3, no. 1392, p. 854, where Dr. Barell (Basel, Switzerland) was owner following Liechti (c. 1957).
Selected Bibliography: Lehmbeck, Leah, ed. Impressionist and Modern Art: The A. Jerrold Perenchio Collection. Los Angeles: Los Angeles County Museum of Art; Munich: DelMonico Books/Prestel, 2016.