Harris Schrank Fine Prints

Camille Pissarro (1830-1903), Prarie de Bazincourt, drypoint and aquatint, 1888, signed, titled, and inscribed “4e etat def no. 6”.  Reference: Delteil 79, fourth state (of 4). In very good condition (with the drying holes and associated nicks all around at margin edges, slight mat toning), the full sheet, 3 1/4 x 4 5/8, the sheet 7 x 8 3/4 inches.

A fine impression, delicately printed in a sepia/brown ink on cream laid paper.

Lifetime impressions of Prarie de Bazincourt are rare; only one proof of the first state is known (in which there were only 2 cows, and before aquatint); only one of the second state (with aquatint and 2 cows added); 2 or 3 of the third state (with the aquatint reduced); and 8 to 10 impressions of the fourth state, with a few lines added next to the willow tree at the right, and other lines on the ground toward the left. (There was an edition of 18, stamped and numbered, printed posthumously; these of course are mere ghosts of the lifetime impressions.)

In 1884 Pissarro moved his family to Eragny, a small village about 80 Km northwest of Paris. From the back of his house he had a fine view across a meadow to the neighboring village of Bazincourt – this is that view.  He may have worked on this etching plate outdoors, from a point in the field outside of the house; a painting (Vue of Bazincourt) in the Brooklyn Museum done the next year,  in 1889,  shows the same view but with a larger field.