Provenance
Antoine Melbye; Mme Melbye's nephew, Emmanuel Pichon, Le Pecq, France, by 1936 until at least 1939.[1] Mme Jules Joets, by 1956;[2] sold 1959 to (Wildenstein & Co., London, New York and Paris);[3] sold 1960 to Mr. Paul Mellon, Upperville; gift 1985 to NGA.
[1] Published as in Pichon collection by Rewald, "L'Oeuvre de jeunesse de Camille Pissarro," _L'Amour de l'art_, 1936, p.141 repro. and in Pissarro and Venturi catalogue raisonné, 1939, no. 6.
[2] Exhibited in Paris, 1956 and Berne, 1957, from a private collection in Paris. According to Paul Mellon records in NGA curatorial files, this collection was that of Mme Jules Joets. A label from the 1957 exhibition on the reverse of the painting gives owner as Mme Joets.
[3] Wildenstein's date and source of acquisition according to letter dated 14 December 1998 in NGA curatorial files.
Accession Number
1985.64.29
Medium
oil on academy board
Dimensions
overall: 24.5 x 32.2 cm (9 5/8 x 12 11/16 in.) | framed: 37.5 x 45.7 x 4.8 cm (14 3/4 x 18 x 1 7/8 in.)
Classification
Painting
Credit Line
Collection of Mr. and Mrs. Paul Mellon
Tags
Painting Impressionist & Modern (1851–1900) Oil Painting Board French
Background & Context
Background Story
A Creek in St. Thomas (c. 1856) represents a rare and significant subject: the Caribbean landscape of Pissarro's birthplace. St. Thomas (now part of the US Virgin Islands) was where Pissarro was born in 1830 to a Sephardic Jewish family, and his early years in the Caribbean shaped his artistic sensibility in ways that are only recently being fully recognized. The creek—a tidal waterway characteristic of Caribbean islands—provided Pissarro with a subject that combined tropical foliage with the reflective water effects that would remain central to his art. The 1856 date places this during Pissarro's return visit to St. Thomas, before his permanent move to Paris. The painting's tropical subject—palm trees, dense vegetation, and the brilliant Caribbean light—reveals a dimension of Pissarro's art that his Parisian career would largely obscure. The Caribbean light's intensity—far stronger than anything France offered—challenged the young Pissarro to develop a chromatic intensity that would later serve his Impressionist work. The creek itself, with its mangrove margins and its role as a working waterway for local boat traffic, connects the painting to the economic life of the Caribbean islands that Pissarro knew from personal experience. This subject—the landscape of his origin—carries particular biographical significance for understanding how Pissarro's art developed.
Cultural Impact
Pissarro's Caribbean paintings influenced how the Danish West Indies were represented in art, providing visual records of a landscape that would undergo dramatic transformation in the 20th century. The paintings influenced how Impressionism's non-European origins were understood, revealing that the movement's founder was shaped by Caribbean light and landscape as well as French tradition. The St. Thomas subject also influenced discussions of cultural hybridity in art history.
Why It Matters
This painting matters because it reveals the Caribbean origins of one of Impressionism's founding figures—a dimension of the artist's biography that has been insufficiently recognized. Pissarro's Caribbean creek demonstrates that his art was shaped by tropical light and landscape before it was shaped by French tradition, arguing for a more global understanding of Impressionism's origins.
