Monet visited Étretat, a fishing village and resort along the Normandy coast, in 1883, 1885, and 1886. His paintings from these trips focus on the dramatic rock formations—in particular, the Manneporte, which is the subject of six canvases that mark the beginning of his practice of painting in series.

In 1886, the writer Guy de Maupassant published his eyewitness account of Monet at Étretat. "The artist walked along the beach, followed by children carrying five or six canvases representing the same subject at different times of the day and with different effects. He took them up and put them aside by turns according to changes in the sky and shadows." Monet refined the pictures in his studio

Inscription: Signed and dated (lower left): Claude Monet 86

[Durand-Ruel, Paris and New York, 1887–92; bought from the artist]; Potter Palmer, Chicago (1892–93); [Durand-Ruel, New York, 1893–1909]; Cornelius Newton Bliss, New York (1909–d. 1911); Lillie P. Bliss, New York (1911–d. 1931)

New York. Durand-Ruel. "Monet," January 12–27, 1895, no. 31 [see Ref. Wildenstein 1979].

Boston. St. Botolph's Club. "Monet," February 1895, no. 10 [see Ref. Wildenstein 1979].

New York. The Metropolitan Museum of Art. "Loan Exhibition of Impressionist and Post-Impressionist Paintings," May 3–September 15, 1921, no. 77 (as "Étretat," lent anonymously).

Brooklyn Museum. "Summer Exhibition of Modern French and American Painters," June 12–October 14, 1926, no catalogue [lent by Miss L. P. Bliss].

New York. Museum of Modern Art. "Memorial Exhibition: The Collection of the Late Miss Lizzie P. Bliss, Vice-President of the Museum," May 17–September 27, 1931, no. 99 (as "The Cliff at Étretat").

New York. The Metropolitan Museum of Art. "Landscape Paintings," May 14–September 30, 1934, no. 51 (as "Étretat").

Kunsthaus Zürich. "Claude Monet, 1840–1926," May 10–June 15, 1952, no. 67 (as "Le Pic à Étretat").

The Hague. Gemeentemuseum. "Claude Monet," July 24–September 22, 1952, no. 52 (as "Le Pic te Étretat").

Pittsburgh. Carnegie Institute. "An Experimental Gallery, Featuring the Art Historical Background to Impressionism," October 1–31, 1953, no catalogue.

Roslyn Harbor, N.Y. Nassau County Museum of Art. "Normandy and its Artists Remembered," June 12–September 11, 1994, unnumbered cat.

Museum of Fine Arts, Houston. "The Masterpieces of French Painting from The Metropolitan Museum of Art: 1800–1920," February 4–May 6, 2007, no. 90.

Berlin. Neue Nationalgalerie. "Französische Meisterwerke des 19.Jahrhunderts aus dem Metropolitan Museum of Art, New York," June 1–October 7, 2007, unnumbered cat.

Bryson Burroughs. "The Bequest of Lizzie P. Bliss." Metropolitan Museum of Art Bulletin 26 (November 1931), pp. 262, 264 n. 2, ill.

John Rewald. The History of Impressionism. New York, 1946, ill. p. 397.

Oscar Reuterswärd. Monet. Stockholm, 1948, p. 284, incorrectly identifies the subject as the Porte d'Aval.

Jean Leymarie. Impressionism. Lausanne, 1955, ill. p. 83 (color).

Luigina Rossi Bortolatto. L'opera completa di Claude Monet, 1870–1889. Milan, 1966, pp. 107–8, no. 296, ill.

Charles Sterling and Margaretta M. Salinger. "XIX–XX Centuries." French Paintings: A Catalogue of the Collection of The Metropolitan Museum of Art. 3, New York, 1967, p. 136, ill.

Margaretta M. Salinger. "Windows Open to Nature." Metropolitan Museum of Art Bulletin 27 (Summer 1968), unpaginated, ill.

Raymond Cogniat. Claude Monet. New York, 1969, ill. p. 29 (color).

Douglas Cooper. "The Monets in the Metropolitan Museum." Metropolitan Museum Journal 3 (1970), pp. 291–92, 294, 302, 304–5, fig. 15.

Jean Clay. L'Impressionnisme. [Paris], 1971, pp. 196–97, ill. (color).

Joel Isaacson. Observation and Reflection: Claude Monet. Oxford, 1978, pp. 37–38, 217, pl. 84, claims that it was developed as a pair along with a very similar painting in the Pritzker collection, Chicago (W1035).

Robert Herbert. "Method and Meaning in Monet." Art in America 67 (September 1979), p. 108.

Brian Petrie. Claude Monet, The First of the Impressionists. Oxford, 1979, pp. 58, 61, pl. 51.

Daniel Wildenstein. "1882–1886: Peintures." Claude Monet: Biographie et catalogue raisonné. 2, Lausanne, 1979, pp. 43, 45, 184–85, no. 1052, ill.

Daniel Wildenstein. "1887–1898: Peintures." Claude Monet: Biographie et catalogue raisonné. 3, Paris, 1979, p. 66 n. 1278, as included in exhibitions at Durand-Ruel, New York, and St. Botolph's Club, Boston, in 1895.

Grace Seiberling Yale University. Monet's Series. New York, 1981, pp. 65–68, 271, fig. 5, .

Robert Gordon, and Andrew Forge. Monet. New York, 1983, pp. 106, 291, ill. (color).

Charles F. Stuckey. "Monet's Art and the Act of Vision." Aspects of Monet. New York, 1984, ill. p. 114.

Charles S. Moffett. Impressionist and Post-Impressionist Paintings in The Metropolitan Museum of Art. New York, 1985, pp. 135, 252, ill. (color).

John House. Monet: Nature into Art. New Haven, 1986, pp. 59–60, 67, 86, 125, 150, 184, 195, 241 n. 20, colorpl. 130, fig. 225 (diagram), discusses the reworking of the lines of the arch; prints a diagram showing changes Monet made in the disposition of forms.

Monet by Himself. London, 1989, ill. p. 141 (color).

Karin Sagner-Düchting. Claude Monet, 1840–1926: Ein Fest für die Augen. Cologne, 1990, pp. 134, 140, ill. (color).

Virginia Spate. Claude Monet: Life and Work. New York, 1992, p. 171.

Chuji Ikegami. "Period of Impressionism." New History of World Art. 22, Tokyo, 1993, p. 212, fig. 120.

Robert L. Herbert. Monet on the Normandy Coast: Tourism and Painting, 1867–1886. New Haven, 1994, pp. 115–16, fig. 129 (color), dates it 1885–86.

Constance Schwartz. Normandy and Its Artists Remembered. Exh. cat., Nassau County Museum of Art. Roslyn Harbor, N.Y., 1994, pp. 23, 82, colorpl. X.

Daniel Wildenstein. "Catalogue raisonné–Werkverzeichnis: Nos. 969–1595." Monet. 3, 2nd ed. Cologne, 1996, p. 398, no. 1052, ill. (color).

Daniel Wildenstein. Monet or the Triumph of Impressionism. 1, 2nd ed. Cologne, 1996, pp. 210–11, ill. (color, cropped).

Rebecca A. Rabinow. "Modern Art Comes to the Metropolitan: The 1921 Exhibition of 'Impressionist and Post-Impressionist Paintings'." Apollo 152 (October 2000), p. 11, fig. 9 (installation photo).

Impressionist & Modern Art Part One. Sotheby's, New York. May 3, 2005, p. 24, under no. 6, mentions it in the entry for another Manneporte picture (W1035).

Robert L. Herbert in "Monet's Neo-Romantic Seascapes 1881–1886." Monet and French Landscape: Vétheuil and Normandy. Edinburgh, 2006, p. 73, colorpl. 10.

Joseph Baillio and Cora Michael in Claude Monet (1840–1926): A Tribute to Daniel Wildenstein and Katia Granoff. Exh. cat., Wildenstein & Co., Inc. New York, 2007, p. 165.

Kathryn Calley Galitz in The Masterpieces of French Painting from The Metropolitan Museum of Art: 1800–1920. Exh. cat., Museum of Fine Arts, Houston. New York, 2007, pp. 126, 241, no. 90, ill. (color and black and white).

Richard Kendall in James A. Ganz and Richard Kendall. The Unknown Monet: Pastels and Drawings. Exh. cat., Royal Academy of Arts, London. Williamstown, Mass., 2007, p. 155, fig. 137 (color).

Paul Hayes Tucker in Claude Monet (1840–1926): A Tribute to Daniel Wildenstein and Katia Granoff. Exh. cat., Wildenstein & Co., Inc. New York, 2007, p. 75, fig. 13 (color).

Eric M. Zafran in Claude Monet (1840–1926): A Tribute to Daniel Wildenstein and Katia Granoff. Exh. cat., Wildenstein & Co., Inc. New York, 2007, p. 126.

James H. Rubin in A City for Impressionism: Monet, Pissarro, and Gauguin in Rouen. Exh. cat., Musée des Beaux-Arts de Rouen. Paris, 2010, ill. p. 113 (color), reproduces it with caption information for MMA 51.30.5.

The Manneporte is one of several unusual rock formations near the town of Étretat on the coast of the English Channel. Monet painted these rock formations many times. Another work in the MMA (51.30.5; W832), painted three years earlier, depicts the Manneporte from the same vantage point, on the same size canvas, but in a horizontal, rather than a vertical, format.