Camille Pissarro’s The Boulevard Montmartre at Night (1897) is a rare and remarkable example of nocturnal painting by the Impressionist master, part of a celebrated series of urban views completed during his stay at the Grand Hôtel de Russie in Paris. In early 1897, then in his late sixties, Pissarro rented a room overlooking the bustling Boulevard Montmartre, intending to capture the grand Parisian boulevard under a variety of seasonal and atmospheric conditions—daylight, snow, fog, and, in this case, the dramatic effects of artificial illumination at night.
