CAMILLE PISSARRO - AUTOGRAPH LETTER SIGNED 06/05/1897 - HFSID 253301

CAMILLE PISSARRO
The French impressionist pens a letter to his wife thanking her for a gift basket and updating her on the condition of their son
Autograph Letter signed: "C. Pissarro", 2p, 4x6, separate sheets. London, 1897 June 5. To “My dear wife”. In French, translated in full: "We have just received a basket containing 3 fat artichokes, what monuments!! [sic] some magnificent asparagus and flowers which we immediately placed in warm water which served to neaten up the place in a marvelous way, they are truly superb-/ Esther and Lucien thank you very much. We have nothing with which to pay you back./ The next time you send something, you must send me my summer pants and summer boxer shorts, as it's hot and I only have my winter effects./ You are lucky to have some sunshine, here where the barometer reads 77 degrees it's overcast. I wait for the sun uselessly every morning until noon./ Lucien is doing better and has started to move around a little. His left eye is doing better, but [1 word difficult to decipher] are still weak. The doctor says that will get better little by little./ I'll finish up, Esther is waiting for my letter. Esther and Lucien embrace all of you/". A French painter of the Impressionist school, Camille Pissarro (1930-1903) was famed for his landscapes and later cityscapes and is identified with the Impressionist school and with Pointillism. A friend of fellow impressionists including Monet and Cézanne, he helped organize the exhibitions of impressionist work, the first in 1874, which helped popularize the new style of painting. The artist wrote this letter from his son Lucien's home in Bedford Park, London. Lucien, also an artist, was living in London with his wife, the former Esther Bensusan, whom he married in 1892. At the time of the letter, Camille Pissarro had just completed a series of paintings of Montmartre in Paris and had returned to his family at Eragny. He left Eragny suddenly to tend to Lucien, who was very sick, struck with an illness that had paralyzed him. When Lucien gained some strength in the summer of 1897 (after this letter), Camille shuttled him and his family to his home at Eragny. Lucien was able to slowly recover, although the fingers on his left hand remained numb. Faint horizontal crease. Fine condition.