Depicts
Pont du Carrousel
Painted from a third-floor window of the Hôtel du Quai Voltaire in 1903, in the last series Pissarro finished. The bridge in it is Polonceau's 1834 iron crossing, demolished thirty years later.
Painting
The Pont du Carrousel, Afternoon
One of the last pictures Camille Pissarro painted. He worked it in 1903 from a hotel window on the quai Voltaire, looking downriver at the bridge, and was dead by November.
- 1903
- Oil on canvas
About Camille Pissarro
The Hôtel du Quai Voltaire
Pissarro painted cities from windows. A recurring eye condition made working outdoors in wind and dust painful, so from the late 1890s he rented rooms above the streets he wanted and painted the same view through changing weather and light — the boulevard Montmartre, the avenue de l'Opéra, the Pont-Neuf from the place Dauphine.
The last of those campaigns was made in 1903 from a room at the Hôtel du Quai Voltaire, on the Left Bank. Two auction houses that have catalogued paintings from the group, Sotheby's and Bonhams, both name the hotel; neither gives a room number, and no museum or catalogue source fixes the months he worked there. It was the only one of his Paris campaigns painted from the Left Bank. The window gave him the quai Malaquais, the Institut de France behind its trees, and, downriver, the Pont du Carrousel.
The bridge he painted was not this one
The Pont du Carrousel in this picture is Antoine-Rémy Polonceau's bridge of 1834, built of hollow cast-iron tubes faced in wood, which is what stood here for Pissarro's whole life. It was demolished in the 1930s and replaced in 1939 by the stone-faced bridge that carries the traffic now.
So the painting is also a record. The crossing is in the same place, the Louvre is still along the far bank, and the structure between them is gone.
The other pictures from the same room
The Pont du Carrousel was not the main subject of the campaign. Most of the canvases look slightly upriver at the Pont Royal: Bonhams counts seven oils of that bridge painted from his room at the hotel in 1903, and Sotheby's describes the group as his fourth and final Paris series, taking in the Pont Royal and the Tuileries gardens opposite. A closely related canvas of the same year, Le Pont-Royal et le pavillon de Flore, temps gris, is in the Petit Palais in Paris.
The catalogue numbers sit close together. In the 2005 catalogue of Pissarro's paintings by Joachim Pissarro and Claire Durand-Ruel Snollaerts, the Pont Royal pictures are numbers 1486 and 1487, and this one is 1489.
Not every account treats the quai Voltaire as a series at all. The Denver Art Museum's summary of the late Paris work groups it into four campaigns — the boulevard Montmartre, the place du Théâtre-Français, the Tuileries gardens and the Pont-Neuf — and leaves the quai Voltaire out. The sources genuinely differ here. What they differ about is how to group the late pictures; the hotel itself is not in doubt.
The last series
Pissarro left the quai Voltaire and spent the summer in Normandy. In September the family was preparing to move to an apartment on the boulevard Morland, where he intended to begin another Paris series. He fell ill instead and died on 13 November 1903, of sepsis, aged seventy-three, with his family around him. He was buried at Père Lachaise.
He was the only painter to show in all eight Impressionist exhibitions, and he was working on a new view of the city when he stopped.
Timeline
1834
Antoine-Rémy Polonceau's cast-iron Pont du Carrousel, the bridge in the painting, opens across the Seine.
1903
Painted from a room at the Hôtel du Quai Voltaire on the Left Bank; number 1489 in the 2005 catalogue of Pissarro's paintings.
September 1903
The family prepares to move to an apartment on the boulevard Morland, where Pissarro means to begin a new Paris series. He falls ill first.
13 November 1903
Pissarro dies in Paris of sepsis, aged 73, and is buried at Père Lachaise.
1939
Polonceau's bridge, demolished in the 1930s, is replaced by the stone-faced Pont du Carrousel that stands today.
Frequently asked questions
Is this one of Camille Pissarro's last paintings?
Yes. He painted it in 1903 and died in November of that year, aged seventy-three. It belongs to the last group of Paris pictures he made, all painted from a room at the Hôtel du Quai Voltaire.
Where did Pissarro paint it from?
From a window at the Hôtel du Quai Voltaire, on the Left Bank of the Seine, looking downriver at the bridge with the Louvre along the far bank. Sotheby's and Bonhams both place the 1903 campaign at that hotel in their catalogue notes. Neither gives a room number, and popular accounts that name a specific room and specific months do not trace back to a museum or catalogue source.
Is the bridge in the painting the one standing today?
No. Camille Pissarro painted Antoine-Rémy Polonceau's cast-iron bridge of 1834. It was demolished in the 1930s and replaced in 1939 by the stone-faced Pont du Carrousel that crosses there now, in the same position.
How many paintings did Pissarro make from the Hôtel du Quai Voltaire?
Bonhams counts seven oil paintings of the neighbouring Pont Royal made from his room there in 1903, and the Pont du Carrousel picture sits beside them in the catalogue of his paintings, at number 1489 against 1486 and 1487. Sotheby's calls the group his fourth and final series. The Denver Art Museum's four-part summary of his late Paris work leaves the quai Voltaire out altogether, so the sources do not agree on how to count it.
Where is the painting now?
The Matsuoka Museum of Art in Tokyo, which lists it among its paintings as カルーゼル橋の午後, The Pont du Carrousel, Afternoon, 1903, oil on canvas.
How big is it?
54 by 65 centimetres, according to Wikidata. The Matsuoka Museum of Art publishes no dimensions and no inventory number for the picture, so that figure does not come from the museum.
In the atlas
More by Camille Pissarro
Painting · The Neo-Impressionist yearsApple HarvestPainting · The Paris window seriesL'Avenue de l'OpéraPainting · LouveciennesEntrance to the Village of VoisinsPainting · PontoiseHoar FrostPainting · Early Pontoise landscapesJalais Hill, PontoisePainting · Late series — TuileriesPlace du Carrousel, ParisPainting · Late series — RouenRue de l'Epicerie, Rouen (Effect of Sunlight)Painting · PortraitsSelf-PortraitPainting · Last worksSelf-PortraitPainting · The boulevard Montmartre seriesThe Boulevard Montmartre at NightPainting · The boulevard Montmartre seriesThe Boulevard Montmartre on a Winter MorningPainting · The Pontoise yearsThe Côte des Bœufs at L'HermitagePainting · The London yearThe Crystal PalacePainting · The Neo-Impressionist yearsThe GleanersPainting · The Paris window seriesThe Place du Havre, ParisPainting · Late series — Place DauphineThe Pont-NeufPainting · The Pontoise yearsThe Red Roofs, Corner of a Village, WinterPainting · Éragny — the late figure paintingsTwo Young Peasant WomenPainting · The figure paintingsYoung Peasant Having Her Coffee
