The Little Street

What you see

A red-brick house fills the right half of the picture, cut off by the top edge. On the left stands another house covered in vines, and between the two run two passages: one closed by an arched door, the other open, where a woman bends over her task. In the doorway of the large house, another woman sits sewing, and on the pavement two children crouch at play.

The bricks are painted almost one by one, in reds and browns that shift with wear, and the lower walls are whitewashed. Above stretches a sky of gray and white clouds. Look for the red shutter on the right, the cracks in the masonry and the painter’s small signature on the white wall at left.