Provenance
Descamps-Scrive de Lille collection. (Galerie Georges Petit, Paris); sold to Meyer Goodfriend, New York;[1] (his sale, American Art Association, New York, 4 January 1923, no. 71); purchased by A.A. Aron, New York; sold 5 January 1923 to (M. Knoedler & Co., New York);[2] sold before 1941 to R. Horace Gallatin [1871-1948], New York;[3] gift 1949 to NGA.
[1] According to Goodfriend sales catalogue of 4 January 1923.
[2] According to the Getty Provenance Index, citing Knoedler's records, Aron sold the painting to Knoedler's on the day following the American Art Association's Goodfriend sale. It is possible he purchased the painting on Knoedler's behalf; press reports and annotated sales catalogue list Knoedler as the purchaser.
[3] Gallatin owned the painting by 1941 when he made the initial offer of his collection to the National Gallery of Art, which was accepted on an "if and when" basis; see NGA curatorial files.
Accession Number
1949.1.3
Medium
oil on wood
Dimensions
overall: 24 x 46 cm (9 7/16 x 18 1/8 in.) | framed: 42.9 x 63.8 x 8.9 cm (16 7/8 x 25 1/8 x 3 1/2 in.)
Classification
Painting
Credit Line
Gift of R. Horace Gallatin
Tags
Painting Impressionist & Modern (1851–1900) Oil Painting French
Background & Context
Background Story
Valmondois, a few miles upstream from Auvers on the Oise, offered Daubigny a slightly different version of his familiar river subject. Here the riverbank is more rural, the washerwomen more isolated in the landscape, and the sky more dominant. The composition is characteristic of Daubigny's 1860s work: a high horizon line that gives maximum space to the sky, a low viewpoint that puts the viewer at water level with the washerwomen, and a color harmony built on silvery greens, pale blues, and warm earth tones.
Cultural Impact
The washerwomen who appear throughout Daubigny's Oise paintings were not nostalgic props but real workers doing real labor. In the 1860s, commercial laundry was still done at the riverbank in rural France, and including these figures grounded Daubigny's landscapes in the economic and social reality of the Oise valley. This commitment to observable truth is what separates Daubigny from the purely pastoral tradition.
Why It Matters
Washerwomen at the Oise River near Valmondois is Daubigny's Barbizon at its most democratic: the landscape belongs to the people who work in it, and the beauty of the scene includes their labor rather than excluding it.
