Monet spent three months on the Italian Riviera in early 1884. He wrote a friend, "everything is superb and I want to paint it all … there are many experiments to make. This landscape is a new experience for me." Installing himself in the coastal town of Bordighera, Monet explored the scenic terrain. Here, he employed light, bright tones to depict the snowy Maritime Alps along the border with France. Nestled among the hills is the village of Camporosso, on the banks of the Nervia, not far from the river’s outlet in the Mediterranean Sea.
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Artwork Details
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Title:The Valley of the Nervia
Artist:Claude Monet (French, Paris 1840–1926 Giverny)
Date:1884
Medium:Oil on canvas
Dimensions:26 x 32 in. (66 x 81.3 cm)
Classification:Paintings
Credit Line:Theodore M. Davis Collection, Bequest of Theodore M. Davis, 1915
Accession Number:30.95.251
Inscription: Signed and dated (lower left): Claude Monet 84
[Durand-Ruel, Paris and New York, 1885–95; bought from the artist on May 6, 1885; Paris stock nos. 675 and 1348; their sale, Moore's Art Galleries, New York, May 6, 1887, no. 85, for $975, bought in; sold for $1,800 on November 12, 1895 to Davis]; Theodore M. Davis, Newport, R.I. (1895–d. 1915; his estate, on loan to The Met, 1915–30)
Brussels. Hôtel du Grand Miroir. "Degas, Monet, Pissarro, Renoir et Sisley," 1885, no catalogue? [see Wildenstein 1979].
Paris. Galerie Georges Petit. "Exposition internationale de peinture: Quatrième année," May 15–?, 1885, no. 68 (as "Vue prise près Vintimille [Italie]," lent by M. Durand-Ruel, possibly this picture).
New York. American Art Galleries. "Modern Paintings," 1886–87, no. 27 [see Wildenstein 1979].
New York. Durand-Ruel. "Monet," January 12–27, 1895, no. 1 [see Wildenstein 1979].
Boston. Copley Hall. "Loan Collection of Paintings by Claude Monet and Eleven Sculptures by Auguste Rodin," March 1905, no. 38 (as "Vallée de la Mervia [sic]," lent by Theodore M. Davis, Esq.).
Fort Worth. Kimbell Art Museum. "Monet and the Mediterranean," June 8–September 7, 1997, unnumbered cat. (pl. 26).
Brooklyn Museum of Art. "Monet and the Mediterranean," October 10, 1997–January 4, 1998, unnumbered cat. (pl. 26).
Bordighera. Chiesa Anglicana. "Monet a Bordighera," June–September 1998, unnumbered cat. (ill. p. 101).
Josephine L. Allen and Elizabeth E. Gardner. A Concise Catalogue of the European Paintings in The Metropolitan Museum of Art. New York, 1954, p. 69.
Luigina Rossi Bortolatto. L'opera completa di Claude Monet, 1870–1889. Milan, 1966, p. 106, no. 275, ill.
Charles Sterling and Margaretta M. Salinger. French Paintings: A Catalogue of the Collection of The Metropolitan Museum of Art. Vol. 3, XIX–XX Centuries. New York, 1967, pp. 135–36, ill.
Douglas Cooper. "The Monets in the Metropolitan Museum." Metropolitan Museum Journal 3 (1970), pp. 301–2, 304–5, fig. 32.
Daniel Wildenstein. Claude Monet: Biographie et catalogue raisonné. Vol. 3, 1887–1898: Peintures. Paris, 1979, p. 66 n. 1278.
Daniel Wildenstein. Claude Monet: Biographie et catalogue raisonné. Vol. 2, 1882–1886: Peintures. Lausanne, 1979, p. 22 n. 234, pp. 29, 122–23, no. 881, ill.
Daniel Wildenstein. Claude Monet: Biographie et catalogue raisonné. Vol. 4, 1899–1926: Peintures. Lausanne, 1985, p. 44 n. 412.
Katharine Baetjer. European Paintings in The Metropolitan Museum of Art by Artists Born Before 1865: A Summary Catalogue. New York, 1995, p. 476, ill.
Daniel Wildenstein. Monet. Vol. 2, Catalogue raisonné–Werkverzeichnis: Nos. 1–968. 2nd ed. Cologne, 1996, pp. 328, 330, no. 881, ill. (color).
Daniel Wildenstein. Monet or the Triumph of Impressionism. Vol. 1, 2nd ed. Cologne, 1996, p. 198.
Joachim Pissarro. Monet and the Mediterranean. Exh. cat., Kimbell Art Museum, Fort Worth. New York, 1997, pp. 96, 120, colorpl. 26.
Monet a Bordighera. Ed. Silvia Alborno. Exh. cat., Chiesa Anglicana. Bordighera, Italy, 1998, pp. 101, 108, ill. (color).
Eric M. Zafran inClaude Monet (1840–1926): A Tribute to Daniel Wildenstein and Katia Granoff. Exh. cat., Wildenstein & Co., Inc. New York, 2007, p. 117.
Joseph Baillio and Cora Michael inClaude Monet (1840–1926): A Tribute to Daniel Wildenstein and Katia Granoff. Exh. cat., Wildenstein & Co., Inc. New York, 2007, pp. 164, 200.
It was during his 1884 trip to the Italian Riviera that Monet captured this view of the Nervia, a river that flows into the Mediterranean, passing near the French-Italian border.
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