The Old Road to Ennery at Pontoise 1877

oil on canvas
91.8 x 150 cm
Gift of Nahum and Sheila Gelber, Montreal, 1997
National Gallery of Canada (no. 39057)

A bare landscape with a few trees and a couple of haystacks. A road winds its way across the fields - we do not know where it comes from or where it may lead. It is the Old Road to Ennery at Pontoise, which starts out in Pissarro?s corner of the Hermitage and crosses the hill to the northeast of Pontoise.

A woman on horseback moves slowly along the road, while another follows the crossroad on foot. Off to the right, between a haystack and a tree, a barely visible group of peasants is outlined against the horizon. A sky heavy with drifting clouds - the kind one sometimes sees in Van Gogh - casts its shadows over the calm and tranquil atmosphere of the rustic landscape.