Église et ferme d’Éragny

The acquisition of a printing press from the printer Auguste Delâtre in 1894 enabled Camille Pissarro to explore the creative potential of colour etching. Pissarro had been inspired by the exhibition of Mary Cassatt's series of ten colour prints at her first solo exhibition at the Durand-Ruel Galleries in April 1891, effusing to his son Lucien 'the tone even, subtle, delicate...adorable blues, fresh rose etc....the result is admirable, as beautiful as Japanese work' (The artist, quoted in: S. Lees, R. R. Brettell, Innovative Impressions. Prints by Cassatt, Degas, and Pissarro, Philbrook Museum of Art, Tulsa, 2018, p. 82). Église et ferme d’Éragny is one of only five colour etchings the artist produced and is a charming example of his experimentation in the medium. Using four plates, including the key plate, each impression reflects a different combination of plates, inked in a varying palette of inks with subtle changes of effect. The artist documented five groups or states of colour variations, with a total of 15 impressions known across all five. In this example, printed in blue, orange-red, lemon yellow, with the key plate in ochre, the pastoral landscape is bathed in the luminous light of a glowing sunset. The atmosphere is very different to impressions of the fifth colour state (see Fogg Museum, Cambridge, Mass.) which are printed with a more subdued palette and the key plate in black. `The varying impressions of this etching, in their exploration of light and colour....embody Pissarro's efforts to incorporate Neo-Impressionist principles into his printed work' (Lees & Brettell, 2018, p. 91).