Camille Pissarro's Autographed Letter in Support of Emile Zola Amidst the Dreyfus Affair

March 5, 1898

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Camille Pissarro's Autographed Letter in Support of Emile Zola Amidst the Dreyfus Affair
Autograph Letter Signed
1 page | SMC 919

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  • Camille Pissarro

    Background

    The French Impressionist Camille Pissarro, born to Jewish parents but himself an atheist, hostile to religion, was nonetheless drawn to the defense of Alfred Dreyfus, in no small measure by the overt antisemitism of the case. Dreyfus, a Jewish French Army captain, was wrongly accused and convicted of treason in 1894.

    An early Dreyfusard, here Pissarro proudly signs on to a committee to strike a medal honoring Emile Zola who, just days before, was convicted of libel for his accusation that the Dreyfus affair was a vicious miscarriage of justice.
    Autograph Letter Signed (“C. Pissarro”), in French, 1 page, on black-bordered mourning stationery, Hotel du Louvre, Paris, March 5, 1898. To Dear Sir.
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    all pages and transcript

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    Page 1 transcript
    Paris
    Hotel du Louvre
    5 mars 98

    Monsieur
    Ce sera pour moi un grand honneur de faire partie du commite qui doit faire frapper une medaille en l’honeur de Zola.
    Agreer, Monsieur, l’assurance de mes sentiments distingues.
    C. Pissarro


    [Translation]

    Paris
    Hotel du Louvre
    March 5, 1898

    Sir,
    I will be deeply honored to be a member of the committee that will be responsible for minting a medal in honor of Zola.
    Yours Sincerely,
    C. Pissarro

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    Historic Context
    Jacob-Abraham-Camille Pissarro

    Camille Pissarro, circa 1900: Wikimedia Commons

    Jacob-Abraham-Camille Pissarro

    Jacob-Abraham-Camille Pissarro (1830-1903) was a Danish-French Impressionist painter and considered the mentor of the rest of the Impressionists. Pissarro was born to a Jewish French and Portuguese family on the Danish island of St. Thomas in 1830. When Pissarro was twelve, his parents sent him to boarding school in France, where he went on to study under various masters based in Paris. Pissarro caused some family controversy when he married his mother’s non-Jewish maid, Julie, with whom he had seven children. With the outbreak of the Franco-Prussian war of 1870, Pissarro, a Danish national, was forced to flee with his family to England. When Pissarro returned to France in 1871, he found that the majority of his art had been destroyed. Two years later, Pissarro organized a group of colleagues into an anonymous independent collective, and a year later, they held their first Impressionist exhibition in 1874 as an alternative to the establishment Salon. Pissarro, along with the rest of the Impressionists, were initially rejected by the art critics. Emile Zola, an art critic and author, however, reviewed Pissarro’s art favorably as early as 1868. Later, Pissarro would join Zola’s petition protesting the Dreyfus Affair, and when Zola was accused of libel, Pissarro joined a committee to strike a medal honoring Zola. Pissarro shifted into Pointillism later in life and was an early admirer who encouraged van Gogh. Pissarro died in 1903 in Paris, where he is buried.

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