PISSARRO, Camille (1830-1903)

Autograph letter signed “C. Pissarro” to his son Rodolphe « Rodo » Pissarro
Le Havre, 21st Sep(tember) 1903, ¾ page in-8 on graph paper

I am part of the Zola pilgrimage delegation at Médan”

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PISSARRO, Camille (1830-1903)

Autograph letter signed “C. Pissarro” to his son Rodolphe « Rodo » Pissarro
Le Havre, 21st Sep(tember) 1903, ¾ page in-8 on graph paper
Small repairs, small stains, various pencil notes on the verso from another hand (probably Rodolphe Pissarro)

One of Pissarro’s last letters, less than two months before his death, as he is on his way to the first Zola pilgrimage


“Mon cher Rodo
Je vais quitter le Havre vers le 26 ou 27, ta mère et cocote je suppose Paul aussi seront à Paris, je fais partie de la délégation du pèlerinage Zola à Médan, il faut donc que je sois le 29 à Paris.
je vais écrire à Georges.
Ton père aff
[ectueusement]
C. Pissarro”


On September 21, 1903, Pissarro, still in Le Havre, had just sold one of his last works painted in situ entitled “La Jetée et le sémaphore du Havre, après-midi, temps gris lumineux”.  Pissarro managed to sell two paintings to the museum and the same number to collectors in Le Havre. After his summer series, the artist announces to his wife Julie, in a letter of the 15th of the same month, that he wants to postpone his return by a week in order to attend the Zola pilgrimage to Medan. He fell ill a short time later and died on 13 November 1903, at the age of seventy-three, at his home, having painted until the end and with considerable public recognition.
On November 17, less than a week after Pissarro’s death, Alexandrine Zola wrote to her wife Julie: “My dear husband and I have kept fond memories of Camille Pissarro, despite the separation that life sometimes imposes. But we often remembered and talked about those good years”. She had been touched by Pissarro’s presence at the Medan pilgrimage of September 29 in memory of Zola.