How Much Is The Garden of Pontoise Worth?

Conclusion: We estimate Camille Pissarro’s The Public Garden at Pontoise (1874; oil on canvas, 60 × 73 cm; Metropolitan Museum of Art, inv. 64.156) at $15–24 million for a well-orchestrated auction sale today, with likely private-sale outcomes around $18–28 million and a prudent insurance replacement value near $34 million. The painting is a canonical Pontoise-period work at an ideal format, long published and held by a top U.S. museum—attributes that command a premium for a work not otherwise accessible to the market [1].

Methodology and benchmarks: We anchor the ceiling to Pissarro’s auction record—Le Boulevard Montmartre, Matinée de Printemps at about $32.1 million (Sotheby’s London, 2014)—which reflects the peak market appetite for his late Paris boulevard series [2]. Within the last decade, high-quality but less iconic Pissarro garden and Pontoise landscapes have realized mid-seven to low-eight figures, such as Jardin et poulailler chez Octave Mirbeau at $10.3 million (2019) [6], Bords de l’Oise à Pontoise (1872) at $2.49 million (2025) [3], and the closely scaled Le Jardin de Maubuisson, Pontoise at $2.97 million (2015) [5]. The Met’s 1874 painting merits a substantial premium to these comparables due to its prime date, subject, scale, and museum-level stature, but it should sit below the boulevard-record tier.

Positioning within the oeuvre: Pontoise in the early–mid 1870s is the heart of Pissarro’s achievement and market appeal. The year 1874—the moment of the First Impressionist Exhibition—confers particular art-historical weight, and The Public Garden at Pontoise forms part of a small cluster of urban-garden views from this period; a related public-garden scene painted the year before was shown in the 1874 exhibition [1]. The Met canvas combines a desirable figure-in-landscape motif with a luminous, modern public space—an intersection of social subject and plein-air innovation that resonates strongly with collectors and institutions.

Market climate: Impressionist and Post-Impressionist totals softened in 2023–2024 as trophy supply thinned, but 2025 saw a selective rebound and a sustained “flight to quality.” Blue-chip Impressionists (led by Monet) anchored evening sales, and depth of bidding returned for prime material [4]. Against that backdrop, a fresh-to-market, prime-date Pissarro of this caliber would draw cross-category attention, particularly with a guarantee and global outreach.

Why this range: The $15–24 million band calibrates market comparables upward to reflect the painting’s prime 1874 date, garden-with-figures subject, ideal size, and long scholarly visibility, while remaining realistic relative to the boulevard-view record [2][3][5][6]. The private-sale premium recognizes the scarcity of comparable quality and the willingness of buyers to pay for discretion and certainty. The insurance figure reflects wall-to-wall replacement at or above likely auction results and the cost—and difficulty—of sourcing a qualitative substitute for a core-period, museum-grade Pissarro [4].