Claude Monet

Cyrus J. Lawrence, New York (acquired circa 1891. Sold: The American Art Association, New York, January 1910, lot 71)
Richard H. Lawrence, New York (sold: The American Art Association, New York, January 1926, lot 174)
Durand-Ruel, New York (purchased at the above sale)
Durand-Ruel, Paris (acquired from the above on 15th April 1946)
Private Collection (acquired by circa 1957)
Marc Blondeau, Geneva
Louis Stern Fine Arts, Los Angeles (acquired from the above in 1994)
Private Collection (acquired from the above in 1995. Sold: Sotheby's, New York, 3^rd November 2008, lot 19)
Purchased at the above sale by the present owner

New York, Union League Club, Monet, 1891, no. 79
London, Arthur Tooth & Sons Ltd., Selected Pictures by Claude Monet, 1936, no. 10 (as dating from 1880)
Paris, Musée de l'Orangerie, Exposition du Centenaire de Monet-Rodin au profit de l'entraide des artistes, 1940, no. 26
Santa Barbara, Santa Barbara Museum of Art, Santa Barbara Collects: Impressions of France, 1998, no. 47, illustrated in colour in the catalogue
Santa Barbara, Santa Barbara Museum of Art, 2000 (on loan)

Maurice Malingue, Claude Monet, Monaco, 1943, illustrated in colour p. 64
Daniel Wildenstein, Claude Monet, biographie et catalogue raisonné, Lausanne & Paris, 1974, vol. I, no. 640, illustrated p. 391
Daniel Wildenstein, Monet, Catalogue raisonné, Cologne, 1996, vol. II, no. 640, illustrated p. 243 (with incorrect measurements)

The canvas is unlined. Apart from some minor scattered spots of retouching in the sky and water, and a small area of retouching to the lower left corner, visible under ultra-violet light, this work is in very good condition. Colours: Overall fairly accurate in the printed catalogue illustration, although brighter and fresher and the blues in the sky are less purple in tonality in the original.
"In response to your inquiry, we are pleased to provide you with a general report of the condition of the property described above. Since we are not professional conservators or restorers, we urge you to consult with a restorer or conservator of your choice who will be better able to provide a detailed, professional report. Prospective buyers should inspect each lot to satisfy themselves as to condition and must understand that any statement made by Sotheby's is merely a subjective, qualified opinion. Prospective buyers should also refer to any Important Notices regarding this sale, which are printed in the Sale Catalogue.
NOTWITHSTANDING THIS REPORT OR ANY DISCUSSIONS CONCERNING A LOT, ALL LOTS ARE OFFERED AND SOLD AS IS" IN ACCORDANCE WITH THE CONDITIONS OF BUSINESS PRINTED IN THE SALE CATALOGUE."

Monet here depicts the environs of Vétheuil along the Seine, the town in which he lived and painted between 1878 and 1883. These years were intensely creative for the artist and led to some of the most iconic compositions of his mature career. During the spring of 1881, Monet painted three compositions from this particular vantage point looking across a flooded plain towards Vétheuil. The cluster of buildings visible through the trees is punctuated by the belltower of Nôtre Dame and the suggested roofs which line the water's edge. Monet lived in a house similar to these during his time in Vétheuil and revelled in the solitude of the region (fig. 1).

The cluster of buildings which form the town of Vétheuil are the focus of multiple compositions Monet painted during this period. The varying degrees of sunlight and multiple stages of foliage over the seasons make for a surprising array of treatments of the subject. In Printemps à Vétheuil, the early signs of spring can be seen in the light green tones on the surface of the water and on the hill rising above the town. The earthtones distinguish it from his more classical summer views, and bestow the composition with a subtle grace.

By the time he executed the present work, Monet had developed a sophisticated approach to painting en plein air that allowed for extensive study of different effects of light. Charles Stuckey writes: 'Instead of beginning a given work and carrying it through to completion, Monet began several works together and these evolved on subsequent days, so that little time was wasted waiting for certain light conditions to return. [...] In theory, a given effect would return on subsequent workdays. Such repeated opportunities to observe and record the same instantaneous light effects day after day, multiplied tenfold or more, extended the accuracy and subtlety of Impressionist out-of-doors painting. Moreover, Monet's pragmatic determination to reconsider an instantaneous perception as it recurred on subsequent days would lead him by the mid-1880s to develop concepts about time and visual sensation, moving his art beyond the initial Impressionist ideas' (C. Stuckey, Claude Monet (exhibition catalogue), The Art Institute of Chicago, Chicago, 1995). 

According to Daniel Wildenstein's catalogue raisonné on the artist, the meadow in the foreground of the current composition first appears in a work from 1880, similarly titled Printemps à Vétheuil (fig. 2). The classically Impressionist style of this earlier painting gives way to a more modern sensibility in the current work - one which will characterise the artist's later works. With the meadow flooded, Monet is able to explore reflections on the surface of the water in a manner that presages his iconic Nymphéas at Giverny (fig. 3). The specificity above the water's edge gives way to boldly abstract passages in the reflection.

Andrew Forge has written on Monet's approach to colour during the early 1880s in a manner that aptly describes the present work: 'Colour which he now learned to use with an unprecedented purity offers an infinitely subtle and flexible alternative to the traditional massing of light and shade.  Systems of interlocking blues and oranges, for example, of lilacs and lemons will carry the eye across the whole surface of the canvas and these colour structures, each marvelously turned to the particulars of light will be augmented by a vast range of accents of comma, slash, dot, flake, each attuned economically to its object that the eye is continually at work in its reading' (A. Forge in Claude Monet (exhibition catalogue), Acquavella Galleries, New York, 1976).

FIG. 1, Monet's home in Vétheuil, below Les Tourelles with Notre Dame in the background. Photograph by David Joel

FIG. 2, Claude Monet, Printemps à Vétheuil, 1880, oil on canvas, Museum Boijmans Van Beuningen, Rotterdam

FIG. 3, Claude Monet, Nymphéas, 1907, oil on canvas, The Museum of Fine Arts, Houston