Claude Monet

Bernheim-Jeune, Paris (by 1924)

Henri Canonne, Paris (by 1927 and until at least 1940)

Amante, Paris

Dr. Fritz Nathan, Zürich

Van Diemen-Lilienfeld, New York (by 1962)

Schoneman Galleries, Inc., New York (circa 1966)

Acquired by the present owner circa 1975

(possibly) Paris, Galerie Georges Petit, Monet, 1898, no. 15

Paris, Bernheim-Jeune, Quelques oeuvres de Monet, Raoul Dufy et Vlaminck, 1925

Paris, Musée de l'Orangerie, Cl. Monet, 1931, no. 101

Paris, Galerie Paul Rosenberg, Oeuvres de Cl. Monet de 1891 à 1919, 1936, no. 11

Paris, Musée de l'Orangerie, Centenaire Monet-Rodin, 1940, no. 49

Stavanger, Rogaland Kunstmuseum; Paris, Musée Rodin, I Norge: Monet en Norvège, 1995

Gustave Geffroy, Cl. Monet, sa vie, son temps, son oeuvre, Paris, 1922, discussed p. 209

"Ici...et ailleurs," Bulletin de la vie artistique, May 15, 1925, illustrated p. 222

Arsène Alexandre, La collection Canonne, Paris, 1930, listed p. 13

Art News, New York, May 1967, discussed p. 49

Karin Hellandsjö, Monet ï Norge - 1895, Hövikodden, 1974, illustrated p. 26

Daniel Wildenstein, Claude Monet, Biographie et catalogue raisonné, vol. III, Lausanne-Paris, 1979, no. 1394, illustrated p. 183

Hommage à Claude Monet (exhibition catalogue), Grand Palais, Paris, 1980, discussed p. 302

Daniel Wildenstein, Monet, Catalogue raisonné, vol. III, Cologne, 1996, no. 1394, illustrated p. 578

During the 1890s, the decade in which he painted Les Maisons dans la neige, Norvège, Monet set out on many journeys in search of artistic inspiration. He found these travels essential to his growth as an artist, and his canvases of this period show an unprecedented depth in the study of light and landscape. Both his extensive series and his individual views met with critical success. As Désiré Luois wrote in L’Événement in 1891, “His skies, whether pure or cloudy, gay or melancholic, resonate with the mysterious sounds of the universe. He forces the spirit to think and to soar above these magisterial representations … of reality … you have the impression of a full and benevolent life which makes you recall the intoxication one feels with the dawning of a new day” (quoted in Paul Hayes Tucker, Monet in the 90’s (exhibition catalogue), Museum of Fine Art, Boston, 1989, p. 4).

Les Maisons dans la neige, Norvège was painted during Monet’s trip to Norway in 1895. It is one from a series of canvases that depict the little thatched-roof cottages of Kirkerud, near the base of Mt. Kolsaas. The artist was intrigued by the interaction between the white immensity of the Norwegian snowy landscape and the rapidly changing winter light. This landscape portrays so vividly Monet’s ambition in the 1890s; as he described it, “…the further I go, the more I understand that it is imperative to work a great deal to achieve what I seek: ‘instantaneity,’ above all … the same light everywhere” (ibid., p.3).