An avid gardener, Monet produced some twenty floral still lifes between 1878 and 1883, garnering both critical and commercial success. This painting was exhibited together with the Museum’s Bouquet of Sunflowers (29.100.107) at the Galerie Durand-Ruel in Paris in 1883 and again with the avant-garde artists’ circle Les XX in Brussels in 1886.
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Artwork Details
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Title:Chrysanthemums
Artist:Claude Monet (French, Paris 1840–1926 Giverny)
Date:1882
Medium:Oil on canvas
Dimensions:39 1/2 x 32 1/4 in. (100.3 x 81.9 cm)
Classification:Paintings
Credit Line:H. O. Havemeyer Collection, Bequest of Mrs. H. O. Havemeyer, 1929
Accession Number:29.100.106
Inscription: Signed and dated (lower left): Claude Monet 82
[Durand-Ruel, Paris, 1883–86; bought from the artist in December 1883; sold in 1886 to Kingman]; Alden Wyman Kingman, New York (1886–?1892); Catholina Lambert, Paterson, N.J. (1892?–1899; sold on February 28, 1899 to Durand-Ruel); [Durand-Ruel, New York, 1899; stock no. 2121; sold on March 10, 1899 to Havemeyer]; Mr. and Mrs. H. O. Havemeyer, New York (1899–his d. 1907); Mrs. H. O. (Louisine W.) Havemeyer, New York (1907–d. 1929; cat., 1931, pp. 154–55, ill.)
Paris. Durand-Ruel. "Exposition des Oeuvres de Claude Monet," March 1–25, 1883, no. 18 (lent by M. Durand-Ruel).
Brussels. Palais des Beaux-Arts. "Troisième exposition annuelle des XX," February 6–March 14, 1886, no. 6 (lent by M. Durand-Ruel).
New York. National Academy of Design. "Works in Oil and Pastel by the Impressionists of Paris," May 25–June 30, 1886, no. 296.
New York. Union League Club. "Paintings by Old Masters, and Modern Foreign and American Painters, together with an Exhibition of the Work of Claude Monet the Impressionist," February 12–14, 1891, no. 50 (lent by A. W. Kingman).
New York. The Metropolitan Museum of Art. "The H. O. Havemeyer Collection," March 10–November 2, 1930, no. 84 [2nd ed., 1958, no. 170].
Toledo Museum of Art. "Flower Paintings in Your Home," October 2–30, 1949, no. 20.
Akron, Ohio. Akron Art Institute. "The Flower Theme," September 11–October 28, 1951, no catalogue.
Hempstead, N. Y. Hofstra College. "Metropolitan Museum Masterpieces," June 26–September 1, 1952, no. 40.
New York. Richard L. Feigen & Co. "Claude Monet," October 15–November 15, 1969, no. 18.
New York. The Metropolitan Museum of Art. "Splendid Legacy: The Havemeyer Collection," March 27–June 20, 1993, no. A400.
Edinburgh. Royal Scottish Academy. "Monet: The Seine and the Sea, 1878–1883," August 6–October 26, 2003, no. 22.
Museum of Fine Arts, Houston. "The Masterpieces of French Painting from The Metropolitan Museum of Art: 1800–1920," February 4–May 6, 2007, no. 88.
Berlin. Neue Nationalgalerie. "Französische Meisterwerke des 19. Jahrhunderts aus dem Metropolitan Museum of Art," June 1–October 7, 2007, unnumbered cat.
New York. The Metropolitan Museum of Art. "Public Parks, Private Gardens: Paris to Provence," March 12–July 29, 2018, unnumbered cat.
LOAN OF THIS WORK IS RESTRICTED.
Gustave Geffroy. "Chronique—Claude Monet." La Justice (March 15, 1883), p. 2.
"The French Impressionist Pictures." New York Mail and Express (May 24, 1886) [see Ref. Wildenstein 1974].
"Chronique artistique." Journal de Bruxelles 52 (February 21, 1886), p. 1, praises the painting as that of a master.
P. H. "L'Exposition de Monet à l'Union League Club, New York." L'art dans les deux Mondes no. 15 (February 28, 1891), p. 173.
Madeleine Octave Maus. Trente années de lutte pour l'art: 1884–1914. Brussels, 1926, p. 43 n. 2.
"Havemeyer Collection at Metropolitan Museum: Havemeyers Paid Small Sums for Masterpieces." Art News 28 (March 15, 1930), p. 35.
Frank Jewett Mather Jr. "The Havemeyer Pictures." The Arts 16 (March 1930), p. 481.
Harry B. Wehle. "The Exhibition of the H. O. Havemeyer Collection." Metropolitan Museum of Art Bulletin 25 (March 1930), p. 56.
H. O. Havemeyer Collection: Catalogue of Paintings, Prints, Sculpture and Objects of Art. n.p., 1931, pp. 154–55, ill.
Stephen Gwynn. Claude Monet and His Garden: The Story of an Artist's Paradise. New York, 1934, p. 168.
Oscar Reuterswärd. Monet. Stockholm, 1948, p. 280.
The Metropolitan Museum of Art Miniatures, French Impressionists: Manet, Monet, Pissarro, Renoir, and Boudin. Vol. 27, Album 51, New York, 1951, unpaginated, ill. (color).
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, pp. 104, 112, no. 251, ill.
Charles Merrill Mount. Monet, a biography. New York, 1966, p. 320.
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. 133, ill.
Douglas Cooper. "The Monets in the Metropolitan Museum." Metropolitan Museum Journal 3 (1970), pp. 296–97, 303 n. 2, pp. 304–5, fig. 23, claims that there is a second painting by Monet of Chrysanthemums in the Courtauld Institute, London (W626) [but those flowers are actually mallows; see Ref. Farr and House 1987].
Daniel Wildenstein. Claude Monet: Biographie et catalogue raisonné. Vol. 1, 1840–1881: Peintures. Lausanne, 1974, pp. 388–89, no. 634, ill., dates it 1880, despite the date on the canvas; gives early provenance information.
John House. "The New Monet Catalogue." Burlington Magazine 120 (October 1978), p. 680, disagrees with Wildenstein's [see Ref. 1974] re-dating of it, although he erroneously believes that Wildenstein dated it 1881 rather than 1880; states that it is "the best candidate to be one of the large still lives which Monet mentions in his letters to Durand-Ruel of September–November 1882 (a reference not made by M. Wildenstein)"; claims that the canvas in the Courtauld Institute depicts the same vase as this picture.
Daniel Wildenstein. Claude Monet: Biographie et catalogue raisonné. Vol. 2, 1882–1886: Peintures. Lausanne, 1979, p. 13 n. 145, p. 44 n. 465, p. 47 n. 484.
Brian Petrie. Claude Monet, The First of the Impressionists. Oxford, 1979, pp. 79–80, colorpl. 69, mistakenly identifies fig. 68 as this painting, with fig. 69 corresponding to "A Vase of Flowers" (Courtauld Institute, London).
Grace Seiberling. Monet's Series. PhD diss., Yale University. New York, 1981, pp. 188–89, 335 n. 2, mentions three other still lifes of chrysanthemums (W492, 635, 812), as well as four paintings of chrysanthemums from 1897 (W1495–1498) where the flowers are no longer contained in vases, but cover the entire surface of the canvas.
Frances Weitzenhoffer. "The Earliest American Collectors of Monet." Aspects of Monet. Ed. John Rewald and Frances Weitzenhoffer. New York, 1984, p. 82.
Charles S. Moffett. Impressionist and Post-Impressionist Paintings in The Metropolitan Museum of Art. New York, 1985, pp. 132–33, 252, ill. (color, overall and detail).
Frances Weitzenhoffer. The Havemeyers: Impressionism Comes to America. New York, 1986, pp. 135, 256, gives detailed provenance information.
Dennis Farr and John House inImpressionist & Post-Impressionist Masterpieces: The Courtauld Collection. Exh. cat., Cleveland Museum of Art. New Haven, 1987, unpaginated, under no. 12, contrast its handling with that of "Vase of Flowers" (W626).
John House. Monet. 3rd ed. London, 1991, pp. 15, 27, fig. 33 (color), notes that the free-flowing compositions of such still lifes by Monet had an important influence on subsequent still life painting in France, particularly that of Gauguin and Van Gogh.
William R. Johnston inAlfred Sisley. Ed. MaryAnne Stevens. Exh. cat., Royal Academy of Arts, London. New Haven, 1992, fig. 47 [French ed., "Sisley," Paris, fig. 47], reproduces an 1896 photograph showing this picture hanging on the top balcony of the Grand Art Hall in Catholina Lambert's Belle Vista castle.
Susan Alyson Stein inSplendid Legacy: The Havemeyer Collection. Exh. cat., The Metropolitan Museum of Art. New York, 1993, p. 226, pl. 217.
Gary Tinterow inSplendid Legacy: The Havemeyer Collection. Exh. cat., The Metropolitan Museum of Art. New York, 1993, p. 33.
Gretchen Wold inSplendid Legacy: The Havemeyer Collection. Exh. cat., The Metropolitan Museum of Art. New York, 1993, p. 364, no. A400, ill.
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, p. 241, no. 634, ill. (color).
Caroline Durand-Ruel. "Quand les Havemeyers aimaient la peinture française." Connaissance des arts no. 544 (November 1997), p. 108.
Richard Shone. The Janice H. Levin Collection of French Art. Exh. cat., The Metropolitan Museum of Art. New York, 2002, p. 65, fig. 30.
David Joel. Monet at Vétheuil and on the Norman Coast, 1878–1883. Woodbridge, England, 2002, p. 109.
Michael Clarke and Richard Thomson. Monet: The Seine and the Sea, 1878–1883. Exh. cat., Royal Scottish Academy. Edinburgh, 2003, pp. 76, 176, no. 22, ill. p. 78 (color), state that Monet's date of 1882 is probably erroneous, and that this picture was likely painted with a group of still lifes in 1880–81 whose subjects are fruit (W630–31) and flowers (W625–29, 634–35).
Eric M. Zafran inClaude Monet (1840–1926): A Tribute to Daniel Wildenstein and Katia Granoff. Exh. cat., Wildenstein & Co., Inc. New York, 2007, pp. 84, 92, 96.
Kathryn Calley Galitz inThe Masterpieces of French Painting from The Metropolitan Museum of Art: 1800–1920. Exh. cat., Museum of Fine Arts, Houston. New York, 2007, pp. 124, 240–41, no. 88, ill. (color and black and white).
Impressionist & Modern Art: Evening Sale. Sotheby's, London. February 5, 2007, p. 84, under no. 46, fig. 2 (color).
Impressionist & Modern Art: Evening Sale. Christie's, London. February 2, 2016, pp. 88–89, ill. (color), under no. 22, compares it to Renoir's series of chrysanthemum still lifes.
Colta Ives. Public Parks, Private Gardens: Paris to Provence. Exh. cat., The Metropolitan Museum of Art. New York, 2018, pp. 151, 185, fig. 151 (color).
Marianne Mathieu inMonet: The Late Years. Exh. cat., Fine Arts Museums of San Francisco. Fort Worth, 2019, pp. 82, 205 n. 32.
Laura D. Corey and Alice Cooney Frelinghuysen. "Visions of Collecting." Making The Met, 1870–2020. Ed. Andrea Bayer with Laura D. Corey. Exh. cat., The Metropolitan Museum of Art. New York, 2020, pp. 139, 265 n. 50.
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