A Cowherd at Valhermeil, Auvers-sur-Oise

This view shows one of the roads connecting the hamlet of Valhermeil in Auvers with Pontoise, the village northwest of Paris where Pissarro lived for many years. Between 1873 and 1882, he painted some twenty works in this area, several featuring the same red-roofed house. The subject, villagers walking on paths through the French countryside, was one of the artist’s favorites, reflecting his interest in the pulse of daily rural life. Made in 1874, the year of the first Impressionist exhibition, this picture demonstrates Pissarro’s adaptation of the looser touch, broken brushstrokes, and lighter palette of younger colleagues like Monet.

Credit: Gift of Edna H. Sachs, 1956