Lot Essay
Monet settled in Giverny at the end of April 1883. From there it was only one kilometer to reach the Seine and its tributary, the river Epte. By basing himself in this region, he was able to face his continuing misfortune with a good heart, and he allowed himself to expand on his range of subject matter and its treatment, through his exploration of the area. Paul Tucker writes of the works produced during this period:
"It may have been [his new] financial security as well as the amount of time he had spent away from Alice and his family that caused him to concentrate on the Giverny area for new subjects to paint upon his return from the south... He focused his attention on the region around his new home for the next two years. This concentration resulted in nearly eighty paintings that, like his view of the south, are remarkably diverse. There are pictures of the Seine and its tributary, the Epte, in virtually every season" (P.H. Tucker, Claude Monet, Life and Art, New Haven, 1995, p. 120).
The present work is closely related to two other paintings of the same date and size in the Museum of Art, Rhode Island School of Design and in the Muse Marmottan in Paris (Wildenstein, nos. 1006-7). Daniel Wildenstein notes that La Seine prs de Giverny was "painted much closer to the mouth of the Epte [than the works produced at nearby Port-Villez, and that] this view apparently has some relation to the series painted in 1897 (Wildenstein, nos. 1489-92). However the alterations made since the 19th century to the Banks of the Seine, especially the dredging out of the islands, make it difficult to be more precise about the spot at which it was painted" (D. Wildenstein, op. cit., 1996 p. 379).
"It may have been [his new] financial security as well as the amount of time he had spent away from Alice and his family that caused him to concentrate on the Giverny area for new subjects to paint upon his return from the south... He focused his attention on the region around his new home for the next two years. This concentration resulted in nearly eighty paintings that, like his view of the south, are remarkably diverse. There are pictures of the Seine and its tributary, the Epte, in virtually every season" (P.H. Tucker, Claude Monet, Life and Art, New Haven, 1995, p. 120).
The present work is closely related to two other paintings of the same date and size in the Museum of Art, Rhode Island School of Design and in the Muse Marmottan in Paris (Wildenstein, nos. 1006-7). Daniel Wildenstein notes that La Seine prs de Giverny was "painted much closer to the mouth of the Epte [than the works produced at nearby Port-Villez, and that] this view apparently has some relation to the series painted in 1897 (Wildenstein, nos. 1489-92). However the alterations made since the 19th century to the Banks of the Seine, especially the dredging out of the islands, make it difficult to be more precise about the spot at which it was painted" (D. Wildenstein, op. cit., 1996 p. 379).