The pea harvest

This 1887 gouache at an unknown location depicts the pea harvest — a subject combining agricultural labor with the specific seasonal character of early summer harvest. Painted during Pissarro's Neo-Impressionist phase (1885–90), this work in gouache rather than oil suggests it may have been a study or independent work in a different medium. The pea harvest, with workers bent over crop rows, continued his commitment to depicting rural labor with observational directness. Using gouache during the divisionist period was not unusual; many Neo-Impressionist artists worked in gouache and watercolor alongside oil, adapting the systematic color theory to different media.

Gouache's opacity and covering power creates a different surface quality from oil. In his divisionist period, Pissarro adapted the systematic dot application to gouache, creating passages of regular color marks. The harvest scene's warm summer palette — green, ochre, blue sky — is rendered with the characteristic Neo-Impressionist color analysis.