Lot Essay
Chantemesle is a hamlet in the La Roche-Guyon road, about 1½ miles (2.5 km.) from the house in Vétheuil where Monet lived from 1878 until 1881. In addition to numerous views of the Seine which the artist painted from his home and its environs, Monet explored its surrounding countryside, and views of the La Roche-Guyon and Vétheuil roads figure in four other paintings of 1880. (D. Wildenstein, op. cit., nos. 581-584).
The motif of the country road receding into the distance forms a compositional counterpart to the watery foreground of the river scenes. "Monet's move to Vétheuil was a departure from a landscape that was being transformed by industry and marked the end of his preoccupation with specifically modern themes." (J. House, Claude Monet: Painter of Light, Auckland, 1985, p. 50)
The motif of the country road receding into the distance forms a compositional counterpart to the watery foreground of the river scenes. "Monet's move to Vétheuil was a departure from a landscape that was being transformed by industry and marked the end of his preoccupation with specifically modern themes." (J. House, Claude Monet: Painter of Light, Auckland, 1985, p. 50)