Hugues Claude Pissarro, Garden Path with Birdbath, Original Signed Pastel on Paper, 1960s, Framed

The light comes through a single gap in the trees at the centre, and everything else in the sheet is worked over and over.

Pastel on paper, 9 x 13 inches (23 x 33 cm), framed 20 x 24 inches (51 x 61 cm). Signed H. Claude Pissarro lower centre. Executed in the 1960s, in a moulded gilt frame under glass.

A path runs from the lower left toward a stone birdbath on the right, with beds of flowers along its edge and a figure standing at the turn. The trees behind are still bare, the one on the right already in full leaf, and the two states of the season sit side by side in the same view. The figure is two strokes of blue grey and a pale head, half taken by the shrub beside her.

The pastel is laid in short crossed strokes throughout, dense in the beds and the foliage, thinner in the sky where the paper is left to carry the light. The colour is built up rather than blended, so that the greens hold pink, blue and straw within them at close range.

The frame is a deep moulded gilt pattern with a carved leaf and tongue outer course and a stepped inner moulding, over a wide cream mount. The sheet is clean and stable under glass.