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PAG2-pissarro-woodcut-jpg

The image is one of the illustrations from Lucien Pissarro’s first published book for the Ergany Press, The Queen of the Fishes (1894). It depicts three young girls playing along the side of a river. In the bottom right foreground a girl stands at the shore of the river. She is in three-quarter profile with her back to the viewer. She wears a blue and white stripped dress that hangs down to just below her knees, with red stockings, brown shoes and a yellow straw hat decorated with a red ribbon. She has shoulder length brown hair. Her left arm reaches out towards the opposite shore of the river, palm up. On the other side of the river, two young women appear amongst the tall golden wheat. The woman on the right stands in three-quarter profile, facing the river and the young girl on the opposite bank. She has dark hair and a wide brimmed straw hat. She wears a long white dress decorated with pink flowers, tied with a belt at the waist. She holds her arms up, touching her hands to her hat, as if playing with or communicating playfully with the younger girl. Her eyes are closed. The woman to the left is bent over picking flowers from the river bank. Her dress is dotted in green. Her dark hair hangs loose in front of her as she bends over towards the viewer. Her right arm reaches in towards the root of a yellow flower, an iris. Her left hand holds to other woman’s waist. Her face is in profile facing left towards the flower. Between the women and the girl is a river with yellow lily pads blooming in the lower left corner. Beyond the golden field where the women are, further farmland with fields, trees and a house are visible in the distance. At the bottom of the image in the centre, appears the artist’s initials “LP” in a circle.