Claude Monet

Durand-Ruel, Paris (acquired from the artist in May 1885)
Max Gadala, Paris (acquired from the above in 1885)
Durand-Ruel, Paris (acquired by 1890)
Louis de Bary, Rheims (acquired by 1890; sale: Galerie Georges Petit, Paris, 21st June 1916, lot 72)
Durand-Ruel, Paris (purchased at the above sale)
M. Brandt
Sale: Bois de Caran, Geneva, The Estate of B., 2nd May 1966
Sale: Sotheby’s, London, 3rd July 1968, lot 43
Purchased at the above sale by the present owner

New York, Durand-Ruel, Monet, 1923, no. 10

Daniel Wildenstein, Claude Monet, Biographie et catalogue raisonné, Lausanne and Paris, 1979, vol. II, no. 976, illustrated p. 157
Daniel Wildenstein, Monet, Catalogue Raisonné, Cologne, 1996, vol. III, no. 976, illustrated in colour p. 366

In the winter of 1885 Monet painted several views of the Val de Falaise, running up the hills which overlook the Epte Valley and the hamlet of Falaise near Giverny. During the winter months towards the end of 1884, Monet painted the immediate environment of Giverny, where he had bought a house in the previous year, and depicted a number of views of the road leading to the town covered in snow. In the early months of 1885 he ventured further out in the surrounding countryside, where he painted the valley and the farmhouses. In each of these compositions (D. Wildenstein, op. cit., 1996, nos. 973-79), the artist moved his easel slightly in order to capture the scenery from different veiwpoints. This practice of painting a sequence of the same motif soon evolved into a more methodical system that allowed the artist to explore his subject in endless subtle variations, and is a precursor to Monet’s celebrated method of series painting.

Executed at the height of Monet’s Impressionism, Val de Falaise en hiver exemplifies the artist’s life-long commitment to painting en plein air, exploring the effects of weather conditions and light at different times of the day on the surrounding landscape. The present work offers a vibrant contrast between the green tones of the grass in the foreground, and the icy blue and purple tones of the hills and the sky, evoking the atmosphere of stillness and tranquillity of a winter day. The dominant horizontal lines of the tree trunks, echoed in the fence in the foreground, stand in contrast to the flowing lines of the sloping hills, creating a dynamic composition. Discussing the setting of another painting from this series, showing the same landscape from a slightly different angle, Daniel Wildenstein commented that ‘Although many of the buildings have changed radically, the farmyard on the right still looks just as it did then’ (D. Wildenstein, op. cit., 1996, p. 365).