View of Pont-Neuf with Statue of Henri IV

View of Pont-Neuf with Statue of Henri IV of 1901 at the Ny Carlsberg Glyptotek in Copenhagen belongs to Pissarro's sustained series of Paris river views painted in the first years of the twentieth century. The Ny Carlsberg Glyptotek, which Carl Jacobsen of the Carlsberg brewing family founded in 1897 and endowed with extraordinary generosity, holds one of Europe's finest collections of ancient sculpture alongside significant French Impressionist and Post-Impressionist works. The Pont-Neuf, Paris's oldest surviving bridge, had been painted by Renoir in 1872 at the beginning of Impressionism and carried the weight of both historical memory and contemporary vitality — simultaneously a monument of the ancien régime and a living artery of modern Paris. Pissarro's approach to the bridge in 1901 synthesized the historical awareness appropriate to such a laden site with the Impressionist commitment to present-moment observation: the bridge was a fact of his contemporary urban experience, and he rendered it as such rather than as a symbol, though the symbolic associations inevitably enriched the canvas's resonance.

Pissarro uses a slightly elevated viewpoint to encompass the bridge span, quay, and river surface. Brushwork is his mature Impressionist style — small, directional touches that build the scene through optical mixture. The palette is dominated by the silvery tones of the Seine, with warm ochre buildings and green-grey trees.