Camille Pissarro had a longstanding interest in industry and the working life of those involved in it. From his early depictions of Venezuela’s market squares, to rural farming in Erangy, life in the port of Le Havre and the streets of Paris. In ‘Marché aux poissons, Dieppe’, Pissarro conflates these interests in his depiction of the harbour of Dieppe, displaying the bustling crowd at the industrial heart of the city.

Pissarro made two trips to Dieppe in 1901-2. He first stayed for two months from July 1901, creating no fewer than nine oil paintings of the market square and church, before returning a year later and producing twenty one oils, this time focused upon the city’s harbour. In a letter to a collector, Pissarro described how “Dieppe is a wonderful place for a painter who enjoys life, movement, colour. I have some friends there and I know the motifs I would like to do. In spite of the dense crowds, I have decided to go back there again this year”.

In ‘Marché aux poissons, Dieppe’, Pissarro focuses upon the city’s fish market. The figures busily going about their daily trade are set against the imposing sails of ships and billowing plumes of smoke, all capturing a hive of activity. The painting visualises the scene Pissarro described in a letter to his son Lucien “My motifs are very beautiful, the fishmarket, the inner harbour, the Duquesne port… in the rain, sun and smoke”. Pissarro brings the scene to life in his painting, this time using his brush instead of his pen.

Pissarro’s Dieppe paintings are highly sought after works with many now being in public collections such as Musee d’Orsay, Paris (‘L’Église Saint-Jacques à Dieppe’), The Hermitage, St Petersburg (‘La Foire autour de l’église Saint-Jacques’), Philadelphia Museum of Art (‘La Foire autour de l’église Saint-Jacques’), The Fine Arts Museums of San Francisco (‘L’Avant-port de Dieppe, le matin, temps gris’) and Montreal Museum of Fine Arts, Montreal (‘Darse de pêche, Dieppe, marée basse’).