Hugues Claude Pissarro (French, born 1935)
Garden Path with Birdbath
Pastel on paper

Signed H. Claude Pissarro lower center. 9 x 13 inches (23 x 33 cm), the frame 20 x 24 inches (51 x 61 cm). Deep gilt frame with a cream mount, under glass, in very good condition.

A stone birdbath stands on its pedestal at the far end of the path. The path runs to it from the lower left between beds of flowers, and a woman in a long blue-gray dress stands at the turn, half hidden by the shrub beside her. The trees on the left are still bare while the one on the right is in full leaf, and the light comes through a single gap between them at the center.

The pastel is laid in short crossed strokes throughout, dense in the beds and the foliage and thinner in the sky, where the paper is left to carry the light. Nothing is blended. At close range the greens turn out to hold pink, blue and straw, laid one stroke over another.