When Paul Gauguin painted Apple Trees at l'Hermitage II in 1879, he was still a stockbroker and family man, not yet the radical voyager of later legend. This work belongs to a brief but crucial period when Gauguin was living in the village of Pontoise, painting alongside his mentor and friend Camille Pissarro. The two artists often set up their easels side by side, sharing motifs and advice, and this painting is one of several views Gauguin made of the orchards around Pontoise—a subject he would return to in at least three known versions.

The painting stands as a document of an apprenticeship: a future innovator learning his craft in the shadow of Impressionism. The scene captures a quiet moment in the rural outskirts of l'Hermitage, where apple trees line a gentle slope under a sky brushed with soft, shifting light. In Apple Trees at l'Hermitage II, the viewer’s eye is led by the diagonal of the path, flanked by the rhythmic trunks and dappled foliage, toward a cluster of humble cottages in the distance. Gauguin’s brushwork, still careful and attentive to natural detail, reflects the influence of Pissarro—compare this to Pissarro’s own orchard scenes, where the same motifs are rendered with a lighter, more broken touch.

The painting’s palette, dominated by greens and earthy browns, speaks to Gauguin’s early adherence to painting en plein air, before his later embrace of bold color and symbolism. The subsequent journey of Apple Trees at l'Hermitage II is less well documented than some of Gauguin’s later, more famous works. It likely remained in private hands for many years, as much of his early output did, only gaining wider attention as Gauguin’s reputation grew after his death in 1903. Today, the painting is valued not only for its quiet beauty but as a rare witness to the formative years of an artist who would soon break away from Impressionism and help shape the course of modern art.

Its place in the artist’s career is that of a stepping stone: a record of observation and discipline before the leap into the unknown.