The Crystal Palace

Oil on canvasCamille Pissarro (French, 1830–1903)/1871

Description

Camille Pissarro and his family left France in 1870–71 to escape the Prussian invasion and subsequent civil uprising (known as the Commune). They spent these years in Lower Norwood, outside London. In the neighboring town of Sydenham, Pissarro painted the glass-and-iron Crystal Palace, which was originally designed by Joseph Paxton in 1851 for London’s Hyde Park. Although it was immediately acclaimed for its modern architecture, only two years later the building was dismantled and reassembled in Sydenham. (It was destroyed by fire in 1936.) In this small oil painting, Pissarro relegated what was considered the world’s largest building to the left side of the canvas, as if to give equal space to the “modern-life” scene of families and carriages parading by Sydenham’s more recently constructed middle-class homes.

Provenance

Charles J. Galloway, Thorneyholme, Kunstford, Cheshire, by 1892 [per Galloway 1892]; sold Sold at the Charles J. Galloway estate sale, Christie’s, London, June 26, 1905, lot 279, to Bernheim–Jeune, Paris, for £68.5 [per Christie’s sale cat. 1905]; sold to Durand-Ruel, Paris, July 4, 1905 [this and the three following per Durand-Ruel Archives, as confirmed by Caroline Durand-Ruel Godfroy, Durand-Ruel Archives, to the Art Institute, Mar. 30, 2000, curatorial object file]; transferred to Durand-Ruel, New York, by January 1931; sold to Henry Johnson Fisher (d. 1965), Greenwich, Conn., June 19, 1941; by descent to his family [per Phillips Academy, Addison Gallery, 1967]; sold to Hirschl & Adler, New York, Apr. 6, 1970 [this and the following per Greg Hedberg, Hirschl and Adler, to Gloria Groom, e-mail correspondence, Dec. 1, 2014, curatorial object file]; sold to Mr. B. E. Bensinger, Chicago, June 14, 1971; given to the Art Institute of Chicago, beginning in 1972 [The painting was given to the Art Institute of Chicago in undivided fractional interests beginning in 1972. The Art Institute received the final fractional interest for one hundred percent ownership in 1974].

Dimensions

47.2 × 73.5 cm (19 × 29 in.)

Source

The Art Institute of Chicago

Movement / Period

Impressionism

Accession No

110541

Official Citations

[The Art Institute of Chicago Official Record][Full Resolution Image]

Curatorial Affinity Stream

Continuing the Universe of Camille Pissarro (French, 1830–1903)

Impressionism • France • Harmonious Works & Contemporaries

Continuous Discovery