The laundry Bazincourt

Camille Pissarro's 'The Laundry, Bazincourt' (1900) is a rural labor subject from the Norman village of Bazincourt where he lived during the Éragny period — his engagement with rural female labor (washerwomen at the river, the laundry, haymakers) was consistent throughout his career, and his Bazincourt laundry subjects depicted this traditional activity within the specific landscape of his adopted Norman home. The communal laundry as a subject combined social observation of female working life with the specific visual interest of water, light, and the movement of figures engaged in physical labor.

Pissarro renders the laundry scene with his mature handling — the women at their washing and the specific quality of the light on the water and on the working figures depicted with his characteristic broken color technique. His handling of the reflective water and the figures' movements creates the specific visual character of the washing scene. The social observation of the communal female labor is integrated within the formal investigation of light and atmospheric color that was his consistent concern.