La Grenouillère

The Painting: In the summer of 1869, Claude Monet was working very closely with his friend Auguste Renoir. They set their easels up side by side at La Grenouillère (The Frog Pool) (see fig. 1 above), one of the new weekend leisure spots for boating and swimming of the 1860s located on the Seine at Croissy near Bougival, the western suburb of Paris. Monet and his young family had just moved to Saint-Michel, a hamlet outside Bougival, in late spring of 1869 and would stay there until the following summer. Complete with a restaurant that floated in part over the water, La Grenouillère was perfect for watching people unawares in relaxed, everyday poses. For Monet more than for Renoir, though, it was also an opportunity to explore his much beloved atmospheric water effects. The Met’s painting is equally an essay in reflections of sunlight on water and a close study of human interactions and everyday poses that borrows from the painter’s early work experiences as a caricaturist in quickly capturing the essence of each figure’s appearance at La Grenouillère.

The figures on the tiny round island at the center of the canvas, known as “Le Camembert,” appear in all manner of dress, from the long black bathing costumes in fashion in the 1860s on the women at left to the higher-class top-hatted men in white pants and women in crinolined long skirts at right. They are surrounded by rowboats for rent in the foreground, shirtless swimmers at left, and visitors to the floating restaurant at right. All classes mixed at La Grenouillère, which made it an unusual spectacle to behold.

After a refusal from the Salon in the spring of 1869, Monet was ready for a change. He wrote in a letter to his friend the writer Arsène Houssaye on June 2, “My refusal at the Salon has completely persuaded me . . . . The installation [of the Monet family at Saint-Michel] is complete, and I am in very good conditions and full of courage to work, but, alas, this fatal refusal almost took all bread from [our] mouth[s] and, despite my prices being slightly elevated, dealers and collectors turn their backs on me . . . . " (Wildenstein 1974, vol. 1, p. 426, my translation). His family literally starving for any bread at all that summer (see also his letters of August 9 and 17 to his friend and fellow painter Frédéric Bazille on this point, published in Gaston Poulain, Bazille et ses amis, Paris, 1932, pp. 157–58), Monet was desperate to find a new manner of painting that might find fresh mass appeal. At La Grenouillère, he stumbled toward that something new and was not quite certain what he had found. By the end of the summer, still bemoaning that he would have nothing to represent himself at the coming Salon, he wrote to Bazille, “I do have a dream, a painting, the baths of La Grenouillère for which I’ve done a few bad rough sketches, but it is a dream. Renoir, who has just spent two months here, also wants to do this painting” (Monet (September 25,) 1869; translated in Nochlin 1966). It is now thought that The Met’s picture is among those “bad rough sketches.”

Alongside the various characters Monet studied in a caricatural fashion for this sketch with facial features omitted and, at right, bodily outlines emphasized, Nature, herself, is treated in a cursory manner. The painter limited his palette to merely two or three greens to depict the trees on the left bank of the Seine across from the scene at the Camembert (also known as “the flower pot”) and focused instead on reflections in the water of those same trees, the boats in the foreground, and swimmers at left, arriving at a system of mark-making that culminates in the bravura Morse-code-like dashes of blue, green, and black brushstrokes that appear just right of center on the canvas. This staccato brushwork that leads the viewer away from the worldly object described to focus on the paint application itself was exactly the kind of painting that would lead the critic Louis Leroy to call Monet and his friends “impressionists” in his review of their first exhibition in Le Charivari five years later.

Other renditions of the subject: Monet and Renoir worked so closely in that summer of 1869 that their work became almost indistinguishable. Wildenstein (1974 and 1996) catalogues three paintings by Monet of this subject: W134 (The Met’s picture), W135 (fig. 2, National Gallery, London), and W136 (fig. 3, destroyed; formerly Arnhold collection, Berlin). He tentatively identifies The Met’s picture as the one listed in the 1883 inventory of Manet's estate and suggests the London picture may have been the version lent by Charles Ephrussi to the 1889 Monet-Rodin exhibition at the Galerie Georges Petit. The larger Arnhold collection picture he believes may have been the work rejected from the 1870 Salon, bought by Durand-Ruel from Monet in 1873, and included in the second Impressionist exhibition of 1876. Most scholars believe that The Met’s painting and the one in London are the "mauvaises pochades" (bad rough sketches) to which Monet refers in his letter to Bazille (Monet 1869) but disagree as to whether the lost Berlin picture was a third sketch or, in fact, a painting which he may have actually completed.

Renoir’s picture (fig. 4) now in the Nationalmuseum, Stockholm, portrays the subject from the almost identical viewpoint seen in this composition. While in both paintings well-dressed figures mix with scantily-clad bathers and the sign for boat rentals (“LOCATION CANOTS”) at the side wall of the restaurant has been abruptly truncated in a cropping of the motif that may well be indebted to the artists’ shared early interest in Japanese ukiyo-e prints, differences between the two include Renoir’s more tightly focused view of the islet, his inclusion of a figure who leans down to reach a rowboat that serves as a repoussoir into the scene, and his more decorous exclusion of female bathers from the scene. While one art historian (Aurisch 2014) recently noted of Monet’s close placement of male and female bathers in The Met’s picture that it was “as close as Monet would ever get to a subject matter with even a whiff of impropriety,” Renoir placed a well-dressed woman passing right by a male bather on the same wooden walkway at right where Monet included a sole male aristocrat.

Renoir also portrayed the subject two other times. His version in the Oskar Reinhart collection (fig. 5) more closely echoes Monet’s presentation of the scene to the left of the Camembert in the National Gallery, London (W135, fig. 2). Again, comparison of the two shows Monet not to have shied away from the depiction of contemporary female bathers (in long black swimsuits that look as comical to us today as, perhaps, they did to the caricaturist Monet), where Renoir excised any trace of the sight of contemporary female bathers that might have been ruled too indecorous for the Salon audiences to whom he continued to hope to appeal. Schembri and Boring (2012) have analyzed the exact sites from which the two artists painted each scene. Renoir’s third rendition of the theme (fig. 6) stays on the shore at left of the scene depicted in The Met’s and Stockholm’s paintings and only presents female bathers almost fully covered up by the water.

Leisure on the Seine: The new more frequent train lines to the suburbs made daytrips to such sites as La Grenouillère possible. In addition, in 1856, a bridge replaced the ferry that had been required to cross from Bougival to Croissy (Schembri and Boring 2012, p. 5). Soon enough, the neighboring towns of Chatou (where Renoir also painted), Croissy, and Bougival were teeming with Parisians on weekend jaunts to enjoy life on the water, and several guinguettes (small restaurants with music and dancing) and taverns sprang up to accommodate them.

The “Camembert,” at the center of Monet's canvas, was connected by wooden walkways to the Ile de Croissy on the left and the floating café on the right. The location had become such an attraction that it received an unannounced visit from Napoleon III and Empress Eugénie in mid-July, the same moment when Monet and Renoir decided to paint there. The imperial evening visit was described at length in La Chronique illustrée on August 1, 1869, and the visit made the site famous for Paris’s high society (Schembri and Boring 2012). Guy de Maupassant included descriptions of La Grenouillère in his novels La Femme de Paul of 1881 and Yvette of 1885. Maupassant’s description of the site in 1881 included “half-tipsy people”: “The men, their hats at the back of their heads, their faces red, with the shining eyes of drunkards . . . . The women, seeking their prey for the night, sought for free liquor in the meantime . . . . For there you see in full the pomp and vanity of the world, all its well-bred debauchery, all the seamy side of Parisian society” (Maupassant 1881, translated in M. Walter Dunne, ed., The Life Work of Henri René Guy de Maupassant, Embracing Romance, Comedy & Verse. For the first time Complete in English, London, 1903, vol. II, pp. 258–59). Eleven years after Monet and Renoir captured La Grenouillère’s more staid intermingling of the classes for posterity, it had become a very different place, one for the debauchery described by Maupassant and the skimpier-clad bathing divas advertised as readily available to the male swimmers on “Le Camembert” every Thursday by trains from the Gare St. Lazare that guaranteed return to respectable Paris before midnight (fig. 7). The “bateau-bal-café” (boat-dancehall-café) burned down on October 20, 1889, according to a notice that appeared in Le monde illustré on November 2nd that year. "Le Camembert" disappeared when the river was dredged to widen and deepen it for larger boats. The tiny spot for Impressionist discovery had vanished, and the painters had moved on.

Jane R. Becker 2016

Inscription: Signed and inscribed: (lower right) Claude Monet; (right) LOCATI[ON] CANOT[S] (boat rental)

?Édouard Manet, Paris (until d. 1883); ?his widow, Suzanne Manet, Paris (1883–86); [Durand-Ruel, Paris, possibly bought from Mme Manet in 1886, definitely by 1891; stock no. 1586; sold on September 27, 1897, for Fr 12,500 to Havemeyer]; Mr. and Mrs. H. O. Havemeyer, New York (1897–his d. 1907); Mrs. H. O. (Louisine W.) Havemeyer, New York (1907–d. 1929; cat., 1931, pp. 152–53, ill., as "Landscape—La Grenouillère")

Paris. 11, rue Le Peletier. "2e exposition de peinture [2nd Impressionist exhibition]," April 1876, no. 164 (as "Les Bains de la Grenouillère," possibly this picture).

New York. The Metropolitan Museum of Art. "The H. O. Havemeyer Collection," March 10–November 2, 1930, no. 82 [2nd ed., 1958, no. 172].

New York. Wildenstein. "From Paris to the Sea Down the River Seine," January 28–February 27, 1943, no. 36.

Manchester, N.H. Currier Gallery of Art. "Monet and the Beginnings of Impressionism," October 8–November 6, 1949, no. 38.

New York. Paul Rosenberg. "The 19th Century Heritage," March 7–April 1, 1950, no. 16.

Detroit Institute of Arts. "Thirty-Eight Great Paintings from The Metropolitan Museum of Art," October 2–28, 1951, no catalogue.

Art Gallery of Toronto. "Thirty-Eight Great Paintings from The Metropolitan Museum of Art," November 14–December 12, 1951, no catalogue.

City Art Museum of St. Louis. "Thirty-Eight Great Paintings from The Metropolitan Museum of Art," January 6–February 4, 1952, no catalogue.

Seattle Art Museum. "Thirty-Eight Great Paintings from The Metropolitan Museum of Art," March 1–June 30, 1952, no catalogue.

The Hague. Gemeentemuseum. "Claude Monet," July 24–September 22, 1952, no. 14.

Edinburgh. Royal Scottish Academy Building. "Claude Monet," August–September 1957, no. 16.

London. Tate Gallery. "Claude Monet," September 26–November 3, 1957, no. 16.

New York. Wildenstein & Co., Inc. "One Hundred Years of Impressionism: A Tribute to Durand-Ruel," April 2–May 9, 1970, no. 7.

New York. The Metropolitan Museum of Art. "Masterpieces of Fifty Centuries," November 14, 1970–June 1, 1971, not in catalogue.

Paris. Grand Palais. "Centenaire de l'impressionnisme," September 21–November 24, 1974, no. 27.

New York. The Metropolitan Museum of Art. "The Impressionist Epoch," December 12, 1974–February 10, 1975, no. 27.

Art Institute of Chicago. "Paintings by Monet," March 15–May 11, 1975, no. 19.

New York. The Metropolitan Museum of Art. "Splendid Legacy: The Havemeyer Collection," March 27–June 20, 1993, no. A389.

Paris. Galeries nationales du Grand Palais. "Impressionnisme: Les origines, 1859–1869," April 19–August 8, 1994, no. 147.

New York. The Metropolitan Museum of Art. "Origins of Impressionism," September 27, 1994–January 8, 1995, no. 147.

Art Institute of Chicago. "Claude Monet, 1840–1926," July 22–November 26, 1995, no. 18.

Washington. Phillips Collection. "Impressionists on the Seine: A Celebration of Renoir's 'Luncheon of the Boating Party'," September 21, 1996–February 9, 1997, unnumbered cat.

Stockholm. Nationalmuseum. "Impressionism and the North: Late 19th Century French Avant-Garde Art and the Art in the Nordic Countries 1870–1920," September 25, 2002–January 19, 2003, no. 139.

Copenhagen. Statens Museum for Kunst. "Impressionism and the North: Late 19th Century French Avant-Garde Art and the Art in the Nordic Countries 1870–1920," February 21–May 25, 2003, no. 139.

Budapest. Szépmüvészeti Múzeum. "Monet et ses amis," December 1, 2003–March 15, 2004, no. 68.

Museum of Fine Arts, Houston. "The Masterpieces of French Painting from The Metropolitan Museum of Art: 1800–1920," February 4–May 6, 2007, no. 85.

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

Paris. Galeries nationales, Grand Palais. "Claude Monet: 1840–1926," September 22, 2010–January 24, 2011, no. 27.

Frankfurt. Städel Museum. "Monet and the Birth of Impressionism," March 11–June 28, 2015, no. 40.

Fort Worth. Kimbell Art Museum. "Monet: The Early Years," October 16, 2016–January 29, 2017, no. 32.

Legion of Honor, Fine Arts Museums of San Francisco. "Monet: The Early Years," February 25–May 29, 2017, no. 32.

New York. The Metropolitan Museum of Art. "Making The Met, 1870–2020," August 29, 2020–January 3, 2021, unnumbered cat. (fig. 146).

Kunstmuseum Den Haag. "New Paris: From Monet to Morisot," February 15–June 9, 2025, unnumbered cat.

Claude Monet. Letter to Frédéric Bazille. September 25, 1869 [published in Gaston Poulain, "Bazille et ses amis," La renaissance du livre, Paris, 1932, pp. 161–62], refers to a painting of the baths of La Grenouillère, for which he has made some bad sketches; states that Renoir wants to paint the same subject.

Wynford Dewhurst. Impressionist Painting: Its Genesis and Development. London, 1904, ill. opp. p. 40.

Rudolf Adelbert Meyer. "Manet und Monet." Die Kunst Unserer Zeit 19 (1908), ill. p. 63, erroneously dates it 1870.

Georges Grappe. Claude Monet. Paris, [1909], p. 28, ill. opp. p. 54.

Georges Lecomte. "Claude Monet ou le vieux chêne de Giverny." La renaissance de l'art français et des industries de luxe 3 (October 1920), ill. p. 405.

Gustave Geffroy. "Claude Monet." L'art et les artistes, n.s., 2 (October 1920–February 1921), ill. p. 56.

André Fontainas and Louis Vauxcelles. Histoire générale de l'art français de la Révolution à nos jours. Vol. 1, Paris, 1922, ill. p. 135.

Gustave Geffroy. Claude Monet: Sa vie, son temps, son œuvre. Paris, 1922, p. 262, ill. opp. p. 52.

Louis Vauxcelles. "Claude Monet." L'amour de l'art 3 (August 1922), ill. p. 236.

Camille Mauclair. Claude Monet. London, [1925], p. 47, pl. 17 [French ed., Paris, 1924].

Florent Fels. Claude Monet. Paris, 1925, ill. p. 41.

Georges Grappe. "Claude Monet." L'art vivant 3 (January 1, 1927), ill. pp. 20–21.

Léon Werth. Claude Monet. Paris, 1928, pl. 9, dates it 1868.

Frank Jewett Mather Jr. "The Havemeyer Pictures." The Arts 16 (March 1930), p. 479.

H. O. Havemeyer Collection: Catalogue of Paintings, Prints, Sculpture and Objects of Art. n.p., 1931, pp. 152–53, ill.

Paul Jamot and Georges Wildenstein. Manet. Paris, 1932, vol. 1, p. 106, includes "La Grenouillère à Croissy" by Monet in a list of things sold from Manet's home, possibly this picture.

Stephen Gwynn. Claude Monet and His Garden: The Story of an Artist's Paradise. New York, 1934, p. 168.

Wilhelm Uhde. The Impressionists. Vienna, 1937, pl. 69.

Georges Grappe. Monet. Paris, 1941, ill. p. 33.

Maurice Malingue. Claude Monet. Monaco, 1943, pp. 6, 23, 146, pl. 51.

Preface by Edward Alden Jewell in French Impressionists and Their Contemporaries Represented in American Collections. New York, 1944, ill. p. 101 (color).

John Rewald. The History of Impressionism. New York, 1946, pp. 191–92, 196, ill.

Oscar Reuterswärd. Monet. Stockholm, 1948, pp. 45–48, 280, pl. 12.

Curt Schweicher. Monet. Bern, [1949], p. 13.

The Metropolitan Museum of Art Miniatures, French Impressionists: Manet, Monet, Pissarro, Renoir, and Boudin. Vol. 27, Album 51, New York, 1951, unpaginated, ill. (color).

Maurice Catinat. Les Bords de la Seine avec Renoir et Maupassant. Chatou, 1952, pp. 95–98, ill.

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.

Douglas Cooper. The Courtauld Collection. London, 1954, p. 44.

Lionello Venturi. Four Steps Toward Modern Art: Giorgione, Caravaggio, Manet, Cézanne. New York, 1956, p. 56, fig. 21.

Margaretta M. Salinger. Claude Monet: 1840–1926. New York, 1957, unpaginated, colorpl. 17 [see Ref. Sterling and Salinger 1967].

Ralph Coe. "Claude Monet in Edinburgh and London." Burlington Magazine 99 (November 1957), p. 382.

Denis Rouart in Claude Monet. [Lausanne], 1958, pp. 8, 46–47, ill. (color).

Adrian Stokes. Monet. London, 1958, p. 9, pl. 2 [see Ref. Wildenstein 1974].

William C. Seitz. Claude Monet. New York, [1960], pp. 23, 84–85, ill. (color).

Luigina Rossi Bortolatto. L'opera completa di Claude Monet, 1870–1889. Milan, 1966, pp. 89–90, no. 25, ill.

Raymond Cogniat. Monet and His World. London, 1966, pp. 45, 134–35, ill.

Charles Merrill Mount. Monet, a biography. New York, 1966, pp. 183–84.

Linda Nochlin. Impressionism and Post-Impressionism 1874–1904: Sources and Documents. Englewood Cliffs, N.J., 1966, p. 33 n. 8, includes an English translation of Monet's September 25, 1869 letter to Frédéric Bazille and mentions that both Renoir and Monet produced well-known paintings of the subject.

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. 126–27, ill.

Joel Isaacson. "The Early Paintings of Claude Monet." PhD diss., University of California, Berkeley, 1967, pp. xiii, 224–37, 326–27 n. 32, pl. 79, compares it to Renoir's painting of the same subject (Nationalmuseum, Stockholm).

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

Denys Sutton. Claude Monet: The Early Years. Exh. cat., Lefevre Gallery. London, 1969, pp. 12–13, fig. VII.

Douglas Cooper. "The Monets in the Metropolitan Museum." Metropolitan Museum Journal 3 (1970), pp. 281–82, 286–87, 302–5, fig. 6, questions whether it, with its "virtuoso painting," could really be one of the "bad sketches" mentioned by Monet in his letter to Bazille, but does believe that Monet intended to use the three known versions of this subject (W134–36) as studies for a larger, more finished composition; calls this painting "the starting point from which Impressionism proper was to be developed during the 1870s".

Jean Clay. L'Impressionnisme. [Paris], 1971, p. 95, ill. (color).

Carl R. Baldwin. "The Salon of '72." Art News 71 (May 1972), pp. 21–22, ill., claims that it was rejected by the jury for the 1872 Salon [but see Refs. Wildenstein 1974 and House 1986].

Kermit Swiler Champa. Studies in Early Impressionism. New Haven, 1973, pp. 63–66, colorpl. 11.

John Rewald. "The Impressionist Brush." Metropolitan Museum of Art Bulletin 32, no. 3 (1973/1974), p. 21, no. 12, ill. (color detail).

John Rewald. The History of Impressionism. 4th rev. ed. New York, 1973, pp. 227–32, ill.

Carl R. Baldwin. The Impressionist Epoch. Exh. brochure, The Metropolitan Museum of Art. [New York], 1974, pp. 5, 7, 15–16, ill.

Charles S. Moffett in Impressionism: A Centenary Exhibition. Exh. cat., The Metropolitan Museum of Art. New York, 1974, pp. 145–49, no. 27, ill. (color, and black and white detail) [French ed., "Centenaire de l'impressionnisme," Grand Palais, Paris].

Daniel Wildenstein. Claude Monet: Biographie et catalogue raisonné. Vol. 1, 1840–1881: Peintures. Lausanne, 1974, pp. 45, 48, 178–79, no. 134, ill., suggests that it may have belonged to Manet, and that Durand-Ruel may have acquired it in 1886 from his widow.

Denis Rouart in Monet, Water-Lilies: Or the Mirror of Time. New York, 1974, pp. 42–43, ill. (overall and detail) [French ed., 1972].

[John House]. "The Roots of the Impressionists." Times Literary Supplement (May 3, 1974), p. 464, in reviewing publications by Champa and Rewald [see Refs. 1973], disagrees with Champa's assertion that the known paintings by Monet of La Grenouillère are not the "bad sketches" mentioned in his letter to Bazille.

Grace Seiberling in Paintings by Monet. Exh. cat., Art Institute of Chicago. Chicago, 1975, pp. 25–26, 28, 73, no. 19, ill.

George Heard Hamilton. "The Philosophical Implications of Impressionist Landscape Painting." Museum of Fine Arts, Houston Bulletin 6 (Spring 1975), pp. 6–7, fig. 2.

Frederick S. Wight. The Potent Image: Art in the Western World from Cave Paintings to the 1970s. New York, 1976, p. 267, ill.

Alice Bellony-Rewald. The Lost World of the Impressionists. London, 1976, pp. 99, 102, 104–5, ill. (color).

John House. Monet. Oxford, 1977, p. 6, colorpl. 8, assumes that Monet's known paintings of La Grenouillère, including this work, were studies for a larger composition, actually completed but now lost, and that "in retrospect, the studies have acquired far greater status than Monet meant for them".

Tetsuro Miura and Chuji Ikegami. Mone [Monet]. Tokyo, 1977, unpaginated, fig. 2 (color).

Lionello Venturi. Cézanne. Geneva, 1978, p. 56, ill.

Anthea Callen. Renoir. London, 1978, pp. 11–12, fig. 5.

Joel Isaacson. Observation and Reflection: Claude Monet. Oxford, 1978, pp. 17–19, 22, 77–78, 201–2, colorpl. 29, pl. 30 (detail).

Joel Isaacson in "'La Débâcle' by Claude Monet." Bulletin, Museums of Art and Archaeology, The University of Michigan 1 (1978), p. 6, fig. 9.

Barbara Ehrlich White, ed. Impressionism in Perspective. Englewood Cliffs, N.J., 1978, pp. 6, 153, fig. 2.

Brian Petrie. Claude Monet, The First of the Impressionists. Oxford, 1979, pp. 34–35, 37, colorpl. 28.

Hélène Adhémar. Hommage à Claude Monet (1840–1926). Exh. cat., Galeries nationales du Grand Palais. Paris, 1980, pp. 11, 20.

Jacques Dufwa. Winds from the East: A Study in the Art of Manet, Degas, Monet and Whistler 1856–86. Stockholm, 1981, pp. 135–36, 207 n. 28, fig. 112.

Michael Wilson. "Monet's 'Bathers at La Grenouillère,' From Plein-air to Impressionism: Monet at La Grenouillère." National Gallery Technical Bulletin 5 (1981), p. 14, fig. 2.

Joel Isaacson. "Impressionism and Journalistic Illustration." Arts Magazine 56 (June 1982), pp. 97, 100, 102, 114 n. 38, p. 115 n. 93, fig. 3.

Robert Gordon and Andrew Forge. Monet. New York, 1983, pp. 43–44, 289, ill. (color).

Richard R. Brettell in A Day in the Country: Impressionism and the French Landscape. Exh. cat., Los Angeles County Museum of Art. Los Angeles, 1984, p. 88, under no. 14, calls it "an icon in the history of Impressionism" and accepts Wildenstein's suggestion that it once belonged to Manet.

Ronald Pickvance. "La Grenouillère." Aspects of Monet. Ed. John Rewald and Frances Weitzenhoffer. New York, 1984, pp. 36–51, ill. (color).

Charles S. Moffett. Impressionist and Post-Impressionist Paintings in The Metropolitan Museum of Art. New York, 1985, pp. 10, 112–13, 251, ill. (color).

Anne Distel in Renoir. Exh. cat., Hayward Gallery. [London], 1985, p. 192, ill. [French ed., p. 88, ill.].

Charles F. Stuckey, ed. Monet: A Retrospective. New York, 1985, p. 12, ill.

John House in Claude Monet: Painter of Light. Exh. cat., Auckland City Art Gallery. Auckland, New Zealand, 1985, p. 10.

Shunsuke Kijima. Monet. Tokyo, 1985, unpaginated, fig. 8 (color).

Horst Keller. Claude Monet. Munich, 1985, pp. 58, 65, colorpl. 21 (overall and detail).

Frances Weitzenhoffer. The Havemeyers: Impressionism Comes to America. New York, 1986, pp. 117, 257, colorpl. 76.

Michael Clarke. Lighting up the Landscape: French Impressionism and its Origins. Exh. cat., National Gallery of Scotland. Edinburgh, 1986, pp. 72–73, under no. 87.

John House. Monet: Nature into Art. New Haven, 1986, pp. 51, 53, 59, 77, 136, 147, 161, 205, 235 n. 5, p. 242 n. 38, colorpl. 71, believes that this work and the version now in London (W135) are the "bad sketches" referred to by Monet; suggests that W136 (formerly Arnhold collection, Berlin), which he states is destroyed, was the planned finished composition as well as the "landscape" rejected from the 1870 Salon.

Ronald Pickvance in The New Painting: Impressionism 1874–1886. Ed. Charles S. Moffett. Exh. cat., National Gallery of Art, Washington. San Francisco, 1986, p. 254.

Hollis Clayson in The New Painting: Impressionism 1874–1886. Ed. Charles S. Moffett. Exh. cat., National Gallery of Art, Washington. San Francisco, 1986, pp. 145, 147, 157, 163, fig. 1 (color).

Douglas Skeggs. River of Light: Monet's Impressions of the Seine. New York, 1987, pp. 57–60, ill. (color).

Robert L. Herbert. Impressionism: Art, Leisure, and Parisian Society. New Haven, 1988, pp. 212–15, colorpls. 211, 213 (overall and detail).

Jack Flam. "In a Different Light." Art News 88 (Summer 1989), pp. 114, 116–17, ill. (color).

Francesco Arcangeli. Monet. Bologna, 1989, p. 43, fig. 23.

Richard Kendall, ed. Monet by Himself. London, 1989, ill. p. 51 (color).

Karin Sagner-Düchting. Claude Monet, 1840–1926: Ein Fest für die Augen. Cologne, 1990, pp. 43, 45–47, 65, ill. (color).

Françoise Cachin, ed. L'art du XIXe siècle, 1850–1905. Paris, 1990, fig. 39 (color).

David Bomford et al. Art in the Making: Impressionism. Exh. cat., National Gallery. London, 1990, p. 120, colorpl. 81.

Sylvie Patin. Monet: 'Un Œil... Mais, Bon Dieu, Quel Œil!'. [Paris], 1991, pp. 30–31, ill. (color).

John House. Monet. 3rd ed. London, 1991, pp. 11, 42, 48, 50, 56, 114, colorpl. 9, compares it to "The Port of Zaandam" (1871, private collection).

Virginia Spate. Claude Monet: Life and Work. New York, 1992, pp. 57–59, fig. 63 (color).

Christian Lassalle. Croissy-sur-Seine: Les impressionnistes à la Grenouillère. Exh. cat., Château Chanorier. [Croissy-sur-Seine], 1992, unpaginated, ill. on cover (color detail), calls the opposition between The Met's picture and Renoir's Stockholm version the most characteristic; compares the choice of colors in The Met's painting to those of a mackerel.

Susan Alyson Stein in Splendid Legacy: The Havemeyer Collection. Exh. cat., The Metropolitan Museum of Art. New York, 1993, p. 222.

Charles Harrison. "Impressionism, Modernism and Originality." Modernity and Modernism: French Painting in the Nineteenth Century. New Haven, 1993, pp. 160, 167, 170, 174–75, 258, colorpls. 153, 156 (overall and detail), dates it 1869; suggests that Monet's three works were sketches for a single panoramic view, with this work forming the right-hand section.

Gary Tinterow in Splendid Legacy: The Havemeyer Collection. Exh. cat., The Metropolitan Museum of Art. New York, 1993, p. 33, colorpl. 33.

Chuji Ikegami. New History of World Art. Vol. 22, Period of Impressionism. Tokyo, 1993, p. 173, colorpl. 101.

Marianne Alphant. Claude Monet: Une vie dans le paysage. [Paris], 1993, p. 188.

Gretchen Wold in Splendid Legacy: The Havemeyer Collection. Exh. cat., The Metropolitan Museum of Art. New York, 1993, pp. 361–62, no. A389, ill.

Jacques G. Laÿ and Monique Laÿ. "Rediscovering La Grenouillère: 'Ars longa, vita brevis'." Apollo 137 (May 1993), p. 282, pl. I.

Henri Loyrette in Origins of Impressionism. Exh. cat., The Metropolitan Museum of Art. New York, 1994, pp. 291, 297, 323, 457 [French ed., Paris].

Gary Tinterow in Gary Tinterow and Henri Loyrette. Origins of Impressionism. Exh. cat., The Metropolitan Museum of Art. New York, 1994, pp. 251, 257, 259, 439–40, no. 147, fig. 322 (color), ill. pp. 257 (color detail), 439 [French ed. "Impressionnisme: Les origines, 1859–1869," Paris].

Impressionist and Modern Paintings, Drawings and Sculpture (Part I). Christie's, New York . November 9, 1994, pp. 44, 46, fig. 5.

Richard Covington. "Impressionism's Lively Beginnings." Art & Antiques 17 (October 1994), pp. 86–87, ill. (color).

Jack Flam. "The New Painting." New York Review of Books (November 17, 1994), pp. 50, 52–53, ill.

Charles F. Stuckey. Claude Monet, 1840–1926. Exh. cat., Art Institute of Chicago. Chicago, 1995, p. 194, no. 18, ill. p. 40 (color), suggests that Monet hoped to show it at the Salon of 1870.

Paul Hayes Tucker. Claude Monet: Life and Art. New Haven, 1995, pp. 42–44, colorpl. 52.

Joachim Pissarro. "Monet at the Art Institute of Chicago." Apollo 142 (December 1995), p. 63.

Katharine Baetjer. European Paintings in The Metropolitan Museum of Art by Artists Born Before 1865: A Summary Catalogue. New York, 1995, p. 473, ill.

Stephan Koja. Claude Monet. Exh. cat., Osterreichische Galerie, Vienna. Munich, 1996, pp. 19, 22–23, 54, 60, 185, ill. (color, overall and detail).

Daniel Wildenstein. Monet. Vol. 2, Catalogue raisonné–Werkverzeichnis: Nos. 1–968. 2nd ed. Cologne, 1996, p. 65, no. 134, ill. (color).

Ruth Berson, ed. "Documentation: Volume I, Reviews and Volume II, Exhibited Works." The New Painting: Impressionism 1874–1886. San Francisco, 1996, vol. 2, p. 41.

Eliza E. Rathbone in Impressionists on the Seine: A Celebration of Renoir's "Luncheon of the Boating Party". Exh. cat., Phillips Collection. Washington, 1996, pp. 20, 23–24, 255, colorpl. 2.

Barbara Ehrlich White. Impressionists Side by Side: Their Friendships, Rivalries, and Artistic Exchanges. New York, 1996, pp. 64–65, ill. (color).

Daniel Wildenstein. Monet or the Triumph of Impressionism. Vol. 1, 2nd ed. Cologne, 1996, pp. 76–78, ill. (color).

Alexandra R. Murphy. "Renoir: A Seine Landscape." Christie's International Magazine (January/February 1996), p. 42.

Charles S. Moffett. "An Icon of Modern Art and Life: Renoir's 'Luncheon of the Boating Party'." Impressionists on the Seine: A Celebration of Renoir's "Luncheon of the Boating Party". Exh. cat., Phillips Collection. Washington, 1996, p. 133.

Götz Adriani. Renoir. Exh. cat., Kunsthalle Tübingen. Cologne, 1996, pp. 29–30, 100, ill. (color).

Gary Tinterow in La collection Havemeyer: Quand l'Amérique découvrait l'impressionnisme. Exh. cat., Musée d'Orsay. Paris, 1997, pp. 63, 108, fig. 25.

Susanne Weiss. Claude Monet: Ein distanzierter Blick auf Stadt und Land Werke, 1859–1889. Berlin, 1997, pp. 128–29, fig. 32.

Caroline Durand-Ruel. "Quand les Havemeyers aimaient la peinture française." Connaissance des arts no. 544 (November 1997), p. 108.

Carla Rachman. Monet. London, 1997, pp. 79–82, 152, fig. 56 (color), notes several elements that indicate a change in technique from Monet's earlier work, including stronger color, wider brushstrokes, and a sketchier amount of detail to the figures.

Richard Shiff in Classic Cézanne. Ed. Terence Maloon. Exh. cat., Art Gallery of New South Wales. Sydney, 1998, p. 17, fig. 3 (color).

Matthias Arnold. Claude Monet. Hamburg, 1998, pp. 38, 101–2, ill.

Kermit Swiler Champa in Monet & Bazille: A Collaboration. Ed. David A. Brenneman. Exh. cat., High Museum of Art. Atlanta, 1998, pp. 91–92, fig. 52 (color), discusses Monet's use of figures as elements within the overall landscape, rather than the focus of the painting.

Dianne W. Pitman. Bazille: Purity, Pose, and Painting in the 1860s. University Park, Pa., 1998, pp. 122, 154, 174, 205, fig. 99.

John Goodman in The Oxford History of Western Art. Ed. Martin Kemp. Oxford, 2000, p. 330, ill. (color).

Richard R. Brettell. Impression: Painting Quickly in France, 1860–1890. Exh. cat., National Gallery, London. New Haven, 2000, pp. 115–16, fig. 69 (color), asserts that the composition was begun with the vertical orientation reversed, then flipped.

John House. "London, Amsterdam and Williamstown: Impression." Burlington Magazine 143 (February 2001), p. 106.

Torsten Gunnarsson in Impressionism and the North. Late 19th Century French Avant-Garde Art and the Art in the Nordic Countries 1870–1920. Ed. Torsten Gunnarsson and Per Hedström. Exh. cat., Nationalmuseum. Stockholm, 2002, pp. 15–16, 296 n. 4, p. 307, no. 139, ill. (color).

George T.M. Shackelford et al. Impressions of Light: The French Landscape from Corot to Monet. Exh. cat., Museum of Fine Arts, Boston. Boston, 2002, pp. 20, 290, fig. 8 (color), notes that it was among a series of riverside paintings "executed at the scale of canvases intended for the marketplace" that were probably meant as studies for larger studio compositions.

Dominique Lobstein in Monet et ses amis. Ed. Judit Geskó. Exh. cat., Museum of Fine Arts, Budapest. Budapest, 2003, pp. 262–65, ill. (color, overall and detail).

James H[enry]. Rubin. Impressionist Cats & Dogs: Pets in the Painting of Modern Life. New Haven, 2003, pp. 72, 83, fig. 59 (color, overall and detail).

Petra ten-Doesschate Chu. Nineteenth-Century European Art. 2nd ed. Upper Saddle River, N.J., 2006, p. 391, fig. 16-22.

Linda Nochlin in Charles Gleyre: Le génie de l'invention. Ed. Catherine Lepdor. Exh. cat., Musée cantonal des Beaux-Arts de Lausanne. Lausanne, 2006, p. 201.

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. 84.

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. 157.

Gary Tinterow 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. 16, 121, 238–39, no. 85, ill. (overall and detail, color and black and white).

Lin Arison in Lin Arison and Neil Folberg. Travels with Van Gogh and the Impressionists: Discovering the Connections. New York, 2007, p. 74.

Akiko Mabuchi in L'Art de Monet et sa postérité. Exh. cat., National Art Center, Tokyo. Tokyo, 2007, pp. 25, 241, fig. 6.

Peter Bürger in Gustave Caillebotte. Ed. Dorothee Hansen and Gry Hedin. Exh. cat., Kunsthalle Bremen. Ostfildern, 2008, pp. 25–27, fig. 5 (color), states that the work has two competing styles of painting within it, with realistically rendered boats in the foreground and more diffusely represented bathers in the middle distance; discusses its relationship to Guy de Maupassant's "La Femme de Paul".

Richard Thomson in Claude Monet: 1840–1926. Exh. cat., Galeries nationales, Grand Palais. Paris, 2010, pp. 118, 366, no. 27, ill. p. 128 (color).

Sylvie Patry in Claude Monet: 1840–1926. Exh. cat., Galeries nationales, Grand Palais. Paris, 2010, p. 237.

Kerstin Thomas. Welt und Stimmung bei Puvis de Chavannes, Seurat und Gauguin. Berlin, 2010, pp. 107–8, 220 n. 312, fig. 23, compares it to Seurat's "A Sunday on La Grande Jatte—1884" (1884/86, Art Institute of Chicago).

Laure-Caroline Semmer. "Au coeur de l'impressionnisme." Monet: Ses sources, ses thèmes, ses héritiers. Issy Les Moulineaux, 2010, pp. 46–47, ill. (color).

Anne Distel. Renoir. New York, 2010, pp. 78–79, 84, colorpl. 65.

Dorothee Hansen and Henrike Holsing. Vom Klassizismus zum Kubismus: Bestandskatalog der französischen Malerei in der Kunsthalle Bremen. Munich, 2011, pp. 219–20 nn. 4, 8.

Françoise Tétart-Vittu in Impressionism, Fashion, & Modernity. Ed. Gloria Groom. Exh. cat., Musée d'Orsay, Paris. Chicago, 2012, p. 309 n. 8 [French ed., "L'Impressionnisme et la Mode," Paris, p. 126 n. 10].

Marie-Louis Schembri and L. M. Boring in Monet et Renoir côte à côte à la Grenouillère. Exh. cat., Musée de la Grenouillère. Croissy-sur-Seine, 2012, pp. 40–41, 50–60, ill. pp. 50, 52, 53 (color), state that Monet and Renoir began to paint together on the site in mid-July around the same time as the Imperial court's visit there; incorrectly state that the cut-off inscription "Location des Canots" appears on the prow of a boat rather than on the side of the floating café in The Met's picture; compare it and Renoir's Stockholm version of the same scene to an engraving by Pelcocq (1875, Musée de la Grenouillère, Croissy-sur-Seine); discuss the points from which Monet and Renoir painted their compositions of the subject; call The Met's picture more innovative than Renoir's because of its oval tripartite structure; note both painters' use of the Golden Section in their compositions; discuss its relationship to the larger picture formerly in the Arnhold collection.

Richard Shiff in Cézanne and the Past: Tradition and Creativity. Exh. cat., Szépmüvészeti Múzeum. Budapest, 2012, p. 39, fig. 11 (color).

Peter Kropmanns in Renoir, Between Bohemia and Bourgeoisie: The Early Years. Exh. cat., Kunstmuseum Basel. Ostfildern, 2012, pp. 246, 249 n. 30.

André Dombrowski. Cézanne, Murder, and Modern Life. Berkeley, 2013, p. 3, fig. 1.

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. 20–22, 56, 58, fig. 5 (color), discusses the series as the first steps toward Monet's series paintings of the 1890s; regarding his close placement of male and female bathers, calls it "as close as Monet would ever get to a subject matter with even a whiff of impropriety".

Stephan Koja in Looking at Monet: The Great Impressionist and His Influence on Austrian Art. Ed. Agnes Husslein-Arco and Stephan Koja. Exh. cat., Belvedere. Vienna, 2014, p. 16, fig. 5 (color).

Anthea Callen. The Work of Art: Plein-Air Painting and Artistic Identity in Nineteenth-Century France. London, 2015, pp. 217–18, discusses Monet's treatment of water in this series.

Kathryn Calley Galitz. The Metropolitan Museum of Art: Masterpiece Paintings. New York, 2016, pp. 10, 440, no. 368, ill. pp. 375, 440 (color).

George T. M. Shackelford in Monet: The Early Years. Exh. cat., Kimbell Art Museum. Fort Worth, 2016, pp. 16, 139, 144–47, 149, 168, 177, 186, 190 n. 10, p. 204, no. 32, ill. (color), discusses Monet's description of his paintings of La Grenouillère as "pochades"; compares The Met's picture to "The Landing Stage" (1871, Acquavella Galleries, New York) and "Regatta at Argenteuil" (1872, Musée d'Orsay, Paris).

Anne-Birgitte Fonsmark in Monet: Beyond Impressionism. Exh. cat., Ordrupgaard. Copenhagen, 2016, pp. 18, 207, fig. 9 (color).

Leah Lehmbeck in Impressionist and Modern Art: The A. Jerrold Perenchio Collection. Ed. Leah Lehmbeck. Los Angeles, 2016, p. 182, fig. 37 (color), notes that in the late 1860s both Pissarro and Monet, as exemplified by The Met's picture, shared the artistic goal of painting as directly as possible the experience of being outdoors.

Guillermo Solana. Renoir: Intimacy. Exh. cat., Museo Thyssen-Bornemisza. Madrid, 2016, p. 26 [Spanish ed., "Renoir: Intimidad," p. 26].

Florence Hudowicz in Scènes de la vie impressionniste: Manet, Renoir, Monet, Morisot . . . Exh. cat., Musée des Beaux-Arts, Rouen. Paris, 2016, p. 196.

Richard R. Brettell. "Early Monet: Fort Worth and San Francisco." Burlington Magazine 159 (January 2017), p. 77.

MaryAnne Stevens in Alfred Sisley: Impressionist Master. Exh. cat., Bruce Museum. Greenwich, Conn., 2017, pp. 35–36, 52 n. 8.

Heinz Widauer in Claude Monet: A Floating World. Ed. Heinz Widauer and Dieter Buchhart. Exh. cat., Albertina Museum. Vienna, 2018, pp. 41–42, 46, fig. 12 (color).

Claire M. Barry in Monet: The Late Years. Exh. cat., Fine Arts Museums of San Francisco. Fort Worth, 2019, p. 200 n. 15.

Marianne Mathieu in Monet: The Late Years. Exh. cat., Fine Arts Museums of San Francisco. Fort Worth, 2019, pp. 82, 205 n. 32, fig. 119 (color), as "Bathers at La Grenouillère".

George T. M. Shackelford. Monet: The Late Years. Exh. cat., Fine Arts Museums of San Francisco. Fort Worth, 2019, pp. 15–16.

Daniel Zamani in Claude Monet: The Truth of Nature. Ed. Angelica Daneo et al. Exh. cat., Denver Art Museum. Munich, 2019, p. 26, fig. 6 (color).

Alexander Penn and Daniel Zamani in Claude Monet: The Truth of Nature. Ed. Angelica Daneo et al. Exh. cat., Denver Art Museum. Munich, 2019, p. 126.

"Works in the Exhibition." Making The Met, 1870–2020. Ed. Andrea Bayer and Laura D. Corey. Exh. cat., The Metropolitan Museum of Art. New York, 2020, p. 251.

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, fig. 146.

Theodore Reff, ed. The Letters of Edgar Degas.. By Edgar Degas. New York, 2020, vol. 1, p. 273 n. 3.

Sebastian Smee. "Broken Brushstrokes." Washington Post (August 12, 2020), ill. (color) [https://www.washingtonpost.com/graphics/2020/entertainment/claude-monet-la-grenouillere/].

André Dombrowski. Monet's Minutes: Impressionism and the Industrialization of Time. New Haven, 2023, pp. 59, 74, 232 n. 100, ill. p. 50, fig. 41 (color, overall and detail).

Anka Muhlstein. Camille Pissarro: The Audacity of Impressionism. New York, 2023, pp. 70–71.

Jackie Wullschläger. Monet: The Restless Vision. London, 2023, p. 128, colorpl. 9.

Daniel Zamani in Paris 1863–1874: Revolution in der Kunst, Vom Salon zum Impressionismus. Ed. Barbara Schaefer. Exh. cat., Wallraf-Richartz-Museum & Fondation Corboud. Cologne, 2024, p. 96, fig. 2 (color).

Sebastian Smee. Paris in Ruins: Love, War, and the Birth of Impressionism. New York, 2024, pp. 86–87.

Gérard Denizeau. Paris 1874: Invention de l'Impressionnisme. Paris, 2024, p. 124, ill. (color).

Harmon Siegel. Painting with Monet. Princeton, 2024, pp. 12, 15, 147–48, 151, 153, 156–58, 160, 162–63, 171–72, 175, 181, 215, 217, 235, 275–76 nn. 1, 7, 13, ill. p. 234 and figs. 1.7, 5.1, 5.9, 5.14 (color, overall and details), discusses the picture in detail and in relationship to Monet's and Renoir's paintings of the site; states that the artist's images of La Grenouillère "exemplify a new way of showing the fusion of natural and social worlds into a dynamic environment".

Richard Thomson. "Review of Siegel 2024." Nineteenth-Century Art Worldwide 24 (Spring 2025), p. 177 [https://doi.org/10.29411/ncaw.2025.24.1.13].