| Maker(s): | Monet, Claude | | Culture: | French (1840 - 1926)
| | Title: | The Seine at Bougival
| | Date Made: | 1869
| | Type: | Painting
| | Materials: | oil on canvas
| | Place Made: | France; Bougival
| | Measurements: | stretcher: 23 5/8 x 28 7/8 in.; 60.0075 x 73.3425 cm
| | Narrative Inscription: | signed in reddish orange paint at lower right: Claude Monet, label on stretcher on verso: Customs and Excise(?)..../Goods Identified for Export/OCT 15 1945/E.Nuyland/Officer/Outside Division/MONTREAL P.Q. / CONSIGN NO. DATE/2 (?)/LOT NO. REMARKS/2 [sideways], / 14954 / Picture #9 / Monet, Claude/ The Seine at Bougival/ I.H. 185 / 7SANTINI/BROTHERS[italics]/FINE ARTS DIVISION/39 / THE MONTREAL MUSEUM OF FINE ARTS/74/From Smith College Museum of ARt/The Seine at Boufigal by/MONET/Box Nno. 22/For Canada Collects 1860 - 1960 Exh. / cat. no: 39/artist: Monet, Claude/title: THE SEINE AT BOUGIVAL/lender:/Smith College Museum of Art/Northampton, Mass./exhibition title: MASTERPIECES FROM SMITH/COLLEGE MUSEUM OF ART/exhibition no.: 69.1/circulation dates: May 1970 - October 1972/THE AMERICAN FEDERATION OF ARTS * 41 East 65th Street, New York 10021 / Steling and Francine Clark/Art Institute/ Temp. Reg. No./109/85 / The Phillips Collection [logo]/America's first museum of modern art/1600 21st Street NW Washington, D.C. 20009-1090/ Impressionists on the Seine: A Celebration/of Renoir's "Luncheon of the Boating Party"/ September 21, 1996 - February 9, 1997/ Artist Monet/Title The Seine at Bougival/Date 1868-70/ Medium oil on canvas/Dimenstions 23 5/8 x 28 7/8 in. (60 x 73.3 cm)/Lender Smith College Museum of Art/Reg # 1946.46.1 Plate # 4 / WILLIAM BEADLESTON,INC./60 EAST 91stSTREET/NEW YORK, N.Y. 10028 U.S.A./1. LA SEINE A BOUGIVAL-LE SOIR, 1869-70/oil on canvas, 23 1/2 x 28 7/8 inches/Smith College of Art(sic),/Northampton, Mass. Purchased 1946/CLAUDE MONET [underlined]/October 29-November 20, 1982 / BERNHEIM JEUNE & Cie/Experts pris le Cour d'Appel/25, Boulevard de la Madeleine/36, Avenue de l'Opera et 25, Rue Richepanse/No. 14954/Claude Monet/La Seine a Bougival/s.a.ddd /
| | Accession Number: | SC 1946.4
| | Credit Line: | Purchased
| | Museum Collection: | Smith College Museum of Art
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Description:
water; landscape; vegetation
Label Text:
This early Impressionist painting by Monet, completed at age 28, depicts an evening sky shortly after sunset at the village of Bougival, located on the Seine west of Paris. Monet painted in and around Bougival in the latter half of 1869, joined on occasion by both Renoir and Pissarro, who lived nearby. At that time, Bougival was a fashionable suburban retreat, still unspoiled by growing tourism. At the center of this painting, silhouetted against the sky, is the 17th-century aqueduct commissioned by Louis XIV to pump water for his royal fountains at Marly and Versailles. Monet emphasized the historic landmark and downplayed signs of modernity, including the modern bridge across the Seine that he only faintly indicated. Unlike Monet's later works, in which particular forms dissolve into overall effects of light and atmosphere, in this early work broad, fluid brushstrokes define individual elements of the scene: two figures in a rowboat at lower left, the houses of Bougival behind them, and the long blades of grass on the Island of Croissy in the foreground, the site from which Monet painted.
Other label: This landscape of the resort town of Bougival outside Paris (seen from the Croissy Island, with a Roman aqueduct silhouetted on the horizon) marks an important moment of transformation in French nineteenth-century painting. Its relatively dark color palette, traditional compositional devices (the side-framing trees, for example), and romantic undertones still reflect the influence of the Barbizon landscape tradition. But the painting also looks forward to Impressionism, especially in the enlivened colors of the sunset sky and activated brushwork.
In 1869, when this canvas was painted, the founders of Impressionism—Camille Pissarro, Pierre-Auguste Renoir, and Monet—had come together for the first time to paint and exchange ideas. This year is considered the birthdate of Impressionism, a movement that later took its name from a derisive review of an 1874 exhibition that included a Monet painting entitled Impression: Sunrise.
Subjects:
Canvas Link to share this object record:
https://museums.fivecolleges.edu/detail.php?t=objects&type=ext&id_number=SC+1946.4 |
