Monet experimented with a variety of brushstrokes and simplified, horizontal forms in order to evoke the changing skies over the Seine River near his home in the village of Vétheuil, outside Paris. When this painting was made, in the early 1880s, Monet was expanding his stylistic repertoire of color combinations, brushwork, surface effects, and compositional arrangements. Even though he was already famous as the leader of the Impressionists, his drive to innovate remained strong.
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Title:The Seine at Vétheuil
Artist:Claude Monet (French, Paris 1840–1926 Giverny)
Date:1880
Medium:Oil on canvas
Dimensions:23 3/4 x 39 1/2 in. (60.3 x 100.3 cm)
Classification:Paintings
Credit Line:Theodore M. Davis Collection, Bequest of Theodore M. Davis, 1915
Object Number:30.95.271
Inscription: Signed and dated (lower right): Claude Monet 1880
Erwin Davis, New York; [Durand-Ruel, New York, by 1890–95, 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)
New York. Durand-Ruel. "Monet," January 12–27, 1895, no. 18 [see Wildenstein 1996].
Boston. St. Botolph's Club. "Monet," February 1895, no. 9 [see Wildenstein 1996].
Boston. Copley Hall. "Loan Collection of Paintings by Claude Monet and Eleven Sculptures by Auguste Rodin," March 1905, no. 33 (as "Coteaux de Vétheuil," lent by Theodore M. Davis, Esq.).
Pensacola, Fla. Pensacola Art Center. "Opening exhibition," October 26–November 30, 1955, no catalogue.
Jacksonville, Fla. Jacksonville Art Museum. December 15, 1955–January 30, 1956, no catalogue.
Art Gallery of Toronto. "Comparisons," January 11–February 3, 1957, no. 7.
Ann Arbor. University of Michigan Museum of Art. "Monet at Vétheuil: The Turning Point," January 25–March 15, 1998, unnumbered cat.
Dallas Museum of Art. "Monet at Vétheuil: The Turning Point," March 28–May 17, 1998, unnumbered cat.
Minneapolis Institute of Arts. "Monet at Vétheuil: The Turning Point," May 30–July 26, 1998, unnumbered cat.
Museum of Fine Arts, Houston. "Monet and the Seine: Impressions of a River," October 26, 2014–February 1, 2015, no. 30.
New York. The Metropolitan Museum of Art. "Rodin at The Met," September 16, 2017–February 4, 2018, no catalogue.
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. 101, no. 202, 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, p. 131, ill.
Douglas Cooper. "The Monets in the Metropolitan Museum." Metropolitan Museum Journal 3 (1970), pp. 301, 304–5, fig. 31.
Daniel Wildenstein. Claude Monet: Biographie et catalogue raisonné. Vol. 1, 1840–1881: Peintures. Lausanne, 1974, pp. 115, 370–71, no. 599, ill., describes the location depicted; lists Erwin Davis as owning it before 1890.
Tetsuro Miura and Chuji Ikegami. Mone [Monet]. Tokyo, 1977, unpaginated, fig. 29 (color).
Daniel Wildenstein. Claude Monet: Biographie et catalogue raisonné. Vol. 3, 1887–1898: Peintures. Paris, 1979, p. 66 n. 1278, lists it as being included in exhibitions at Durand-Ruel, New York, and St. Botolph's Club, Boston, in 1895.
Charles S. Moffett. Impressionist and Post-Impressionist Paintings in The Metropolitan Museum of Art. New York, 1985, pp. 126–27, 252, ill. (color).
Daniel Wildenstein. Claude Monet: Biographie et catalogue raisonné. Vol. 4, 1899–1926: Peintures. Lausanne, 1985, p. 44 n. 412.
Charles F. Stuckey, ed. Monet: A Retrospective. New York, 1985, ill. p. 92.
Katharine Baetjer. European Paintings in The Metropolitan Museum of Art by Artists Born Before 1865: A Summary Catalogue. New York, 1995, p. 475, ill.
Daniel Wildenstein. Monet. Vol. 2, Catalogue raisonné–Werkverzeichnis: Nos. 1–968. 2nd ed. Cologne, 1996, pp. 230–31, no. 599, ill. (color).
Daniel Wildenstein. Monet or the Triumph of Impressionism. Vol. 1, 2nd ed. Cologne, 1996, p. 164.
Annette Dixon inMonet at Vétheuil: The Turning Point. Exh. cat., University of Michigan Museum of Art, Ann Arbor. Ann Arbor, Mich., 1998, colorpl. 6.
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.
Helga Kessler Aurisch in Helga Kessler Aurisch and Tanya Paul. Monet and the Seine: Impressions of a River. Exh. cat., Philbrook Museum of Art. Houston, 2014, pp. 112–13, 152, no. 30, ill. (color), dates it to middle of the summer of 1880, when Monet began to see success in sales of his paintings.
Monet painted a second, very similar, version of this subject (W600), which Wildenstein lists as in a private collection in France in about 1969.
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