View of the Oissel Cotton Mill, near Rouen

Pissarro's late interest in industrial subjects is fully articulated in this 1898 Montreal Museum of Fine Arts canvas showing a cotton mill near Rouen — one of his most explicit engagements with industrial modernity. The Oissel cotton mill, with its chimneys and factory buildings reflected in the Seine, represents the new industrial landscape of the Norman river valley that was transforming the same countryside Pissarro had painted as rural idyll in the 1860s and 70s. This painting demonstrates that Impressionism's subject matter was not merely leisure and nature but included the full range of contemporary French economic life.

The industrial buildings are rendered with Pissarro's characteristic broken stroke, their chimneys and rooflines softened by atmospheric haze and reflection in the river. The palette balances warm ochre factory walls against cool grey-blue water and sky. The composition uses the river surface as a reflective mirror that integrates the industrial forms with the landscape.