Provenance
Purchased 17 May 1901 from the artist by (Durand-Ruel, Paris and New York), as _Le Louvre, matin, pluie_;[1] purchased 8 October 1901 by (Julius Oehme, New York);[2] Edward C. [d. 1915] and Mary Griffin [1855-1937] Walker, Willistead Manor, Walkerville, Ontario, and Washington, by 1905;[3] bequest 4 May 1937 to the Corcoran Gallery of Art, Washington; acquired 2014 by the National Gallery of Art.
[1] See Lionello Venturi, _Les Archives de l'Impressionisme_, 2 vols., Paris and New York, 1939: 2:47.
[2] According to Joachim Pissarro and Claire Durand-Ruel Snollaerts, _Pissarro: Critical Catalogue of Paintings_, 3 vols., Milan and Paris, 2005: 3:828, no. 1346.
[3] The painting was lent by Walker in 1905 to the _Exhibition of Paintings, Lent from the Private Collection of E. Chandler Walker, Esq._, at the Detroit Museum of Art.
Accession Number
2014.136.59
Medium
oil on canvas
Dimensions
overall: 66.68 × 81.6 cm (26 1/4 × 32 1/8 in.) | framed: 93.66 × 109.86 × 10.16 cm (36 7/8 × 43 1/4 × 4 in.)
Classification
Painting
Credit Line
Corcoran Collection (Edward C. and Mary Walker Collection)
Tags
Painting Impressionist & Modern (1851–1900) Oil Painting Canvas French
Background & Context
Background Story
The Louvre, Afternoon, Rainy Weather (1900) belongs to Pissarro's late series of Parisian views, painted from apartment windows that provided elevated viewpoints over the city's major thoroughfares and monuments. The Louvre—France's greatest palace and museum—provided a subject that combined architectural grandeur with everyday urban activity. The rainy weather of the title specifies the atmospheric conditions with the same precision Pissarro brought to all his urban series: rain transformed the city's appearance, softening outlines, creating reflections on wet pavement, and producing the atmospheric unity that Pissarro's Impressionist technique served so effectively. The year 1900, Pissarro's last full year of painting (he would die in 1903), finds the elderly artist still working with undiminished energy and increasing ambition. His series approach—painting the same subject under different conditions—had been developed in response to Monet's serial method and represented Pissarro's engagement with the most advanced artistic practice of his time. The Louvre in rain differs fundamentally from the Louvre in sunshine—Pissarro's serial approach reveals how atmospheric conditions transform even the most familiar monuments, arguing that visual experience is always conditional rather than absolute.
Cultural Impact
Pissarro's late Parisian series influenced how urban Impressionism was practiced, demonstrating that the serial method could serve architectural and urban subjects as effectively as Monet's rural and coastal subjects. The paintings influenced how rainy weather was represented in urban art, establishing conventions for depicting wet streets and atmospheric diffusion. The Louvre subject, treated in series, influenced how the museum was perceived as a living urban presence rather than merely a cultural institution.
Why It Matters
This painting matters because it represents Pissarro's late Impressionism at its most accomplished—the serial approach applied to urban subjects with the authority of an artist who had helped invent the method a quarter century earlier. The Louvre in rain demonstrates that artistic innovation can continue throughout a career, and that the same perceptual discipline that served rural subjects can illuminate urban monuments.
