Le Jardin de Maubuisson, l’Hermitage, Pontoise, a 15 x 18in (38 x 45.5cm) unsigned oil on canvas dated to c.1878-80 is estimated at €100,000-120,000.
When the unsigned painting was brought into the auction house its authorship was unknown but Nicolas Nouvelet, from the firm’s Neuilly office, felt instinctively that it was the work of a very talented artist.
After a year and a half of research that included technical and scientific analysis and detailed comparison with Pissarro’s other works, auctioneers David Nordmann and Xavier Dominique were able to announce that the painting will join the official corpus of work by Pissarro and will feature in the forthcoming catalogue raisonné of his oeuvre.
The scene depicts the area known as the Hermitage, a rural quarter of the town of Pontoise near Paris where Pissarro lived. He painted numerous views of this location and another similar titled Jardin potager à L’Hermitage, Pontoise is in the Musée d’Orsay in Paris.
