This painting is one of 14 views of the Boulevard Montmartre in Paris which Camille Pissarro created in 1897. It is the only example of a night scene he painted

Pissarro wrote to his son Lucien on 8 February 1897 that Paul Durand-Ruel, considered the most important art dealer of the 19th century, had suggested the possibility: “A series of paintings of the boulevards seems to him a good idea, and it will be interesting to overcome the difficulties. I engaged a large room at the Grand Hôtel de Russie, 1 rue Drouot, from which I can see the whole sweep of boulevards almost as far as the Porte Saint-Denis, anyway as far as the boulevard Bonne Nouvelle”

Writing on 13 February to another son, Georges, Pissarro observed, “I have begun my series of boulevards. I have a splendid motif which I am going to explore under all possible effects, to my left; I have another motif which is terribly difficult, almost as the crow flies, looking over the carriages, buses and people milling about between the large trees and big houses which I have to set up right – it’s tricky… it goes without saying that I must solve it all the same”

Compared to the other works in the Boulevard Montmartre series, the Effet de nuit piece appears the most blurred, where Pissarro applied the paint as a patchwork of dashes and daubs to suggest the passing crowds and traffic, and the city’s shimmering lights

Despite its name, the scene is not in Montmartre, a district in north-west Paris where artists of the time congregated. Boulevard Montmartre is not far from Opéra Garnier