The East Breakwater, Return of The Regatta, Le Havre

The East Breakwater, Return of the Regatta, Le Havre, 1903, was painted during Pissarro's final visit to Le Havre in the last year of his life, producing a series of harbour, pier, and coastal views that represent his final major landscape campaign. Le Havre had been significant in the history of Impressionism—Monet had painted the harbour there in 1872, producing the Impression, Sunrise that named the movement. Pissarro's return to the Norman port at the end of his life closes a circle with Impressionism's origins. The returning regatta gave him a subject combining architecture, water, and human activity. Now at the Norton Simon Museum.

The harbour composition balances the solid stone breakwater against the animated water surface full of returning boats and figures. Pissarro's late marine handling uses varied directional strokes to build the reflective harbour surface, contrasting with firmer strokes in the stone pier and the sail and mast elements of the returning regatta.