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Lot Essay
In spite of the notoriety of his work, Monet was still unable to make a financial success of his painting. In an attempt to reduce his expenditure and to find new inspiration in a different landscape, Monet, with the financial assistance of Edouard Manet and Emile Zola, moved in April 1878 to Vétheuil further down the Seine valley.
"Vétheuil is at the apex of a vast curve in the Seine (halfway between Paris and Rouen). A large island lies midstream between the town and the hamlet of Lavacourt on the southern bank. In Monet's time the two were linked by a ferry. Behind Vétheuil chalk hills rise steeply, cut in places into cliffs. Orchards and gardens line the riverbank under the shelter of the cliffs (R. Gordon and A. Forge, Monet, New York, 1983, p. 91). The Seine from either Vétheuil or Lavacourt became a frequent motif for Monet during the next three years.
Lavacourt was never more than a small row of houses facing Vétheuil across the river although the Seine bends so sharply at this point in its course that the hamlet was practically an island surrounded by the river on three sides and only connected to the land by a narrow isthmus. The present work, painted on the island in between Vétheuil and Lavacourt, shows the banks of the hamlet in mid-day sun. The writer Emile Taboureux, who visited Manet there on several occasions, commented, "I should tell you that we were at Lavacourt, a little town opposite Vétheuil, the light was soft and serene and the last broad rays of the sun were setting over the village, spangling the silk of the Seine with its lights and fending off the shadows that were lightly burning the tree tops and enveloping the foliage with a darkening green" (quoted in C. Stuckey, Monet, A Retrospective, New York, 1985, p. 92).
The late 1870s and early 1880s witnessed the flowering of Monet's genuinely Impressionist work. "Color which he now learned to use with an unprecedented purity offers an infinitely subtle and flexible alternative to the traditional massings of light and shade. Systems of interlocking blues and oranges, for example, or lilacs and lemons will carry the eye across the whole surface of the canvas and these color structures, each marvellously turned to the particulars of light, will be augmented by a vast range of accent, of comma, slash, dot, flake, each attuned so economically to its object that the eye is continually at work in its reading" (A. Forge, Claude Monet, exh. cat., Acquavella Galleries, Inc., New York, 1976).
Monet tirelessly explored Vétheuil's surrounding villages and countryside, painting views in all seasons. It clearly agreed with the artist as it presented him with an abundant source of unspoiled nature. With views of poppy fields, hillsides lined with apple trees and vistas across the Seine, paintings such as the present work confirm Monet as a true pleinairiste, fascinated by the changing effects of light through the seasons.
"Vétheuil is at the apex of a vast curve in the Seine (halfway between Paris and Rouen). A large island lies midstream between the town and the hamlet of Lavacourt on the southern bank. In Monet's time the two were linked by a ferry. Behind Vétheuil chalk hills rise steeply, cut in places into cliffs. Orchards and gardens line the riverbank under the shelter of the cliffs (R. Gordon and A. Forge, Monet, New York, 1983, p. 91). The Seine from either Vétheuil or Lavacourt became a frequent motif for Monet during the next three years.
Lavacourt was never more than a small row of houses facing Vétheuil across the river although the Seine bends so sharply at this point in its course that the hamlet was practically an island surrounded by the river on three sides and only connected to the land by a narrow isthmus. The present work, painted on the island in between Vétheuil and Lavacourt, shows the banks of the hamlet in mid-day sun. The writer Emile Taboureux, who visited Manet there on several occasions, commented, "I should tell you that we were at Lavacourt, a little town opposite Vétheuil, the light was soft and serene and the last broad rays of the sun were setting over the village, spangling the silk of the Seine with its lights and fending off the shadows that were lightly burning the tree tops and enveloping the foliage with a darkening green" (quoted in C. Stuckey, Monet, A Retrospective, New York, 1985, p. 92).
The late 1870s and early 1880s witnessed the flowering of Monet's genuinely Impressionist work. "Color which he now learned to use with an unprecedented purity offers an infinitely subtle and flexible alternative to the traditional massings of light and shade. Systems of interlocking blues and oranges, for example, or lilacs and lemons will carry the eye across the whole surface of the canvas and these color structures, each marvellously turned to the particulars of light, will be augmented by a vast range of accent, of comma, slash, dot, flake, each attuned so economically to its object that the eye is continually at work in its reading" (A. Forge, Claude Monet, exh. cat., Acquavella Galleries, Inc., New York, 1976).
Monet tirelessly explored Vétheuil's surrounding villages and countryside, painting views in all seasons. It clearly agreed with the artist as it presented him with an abundant source of unspoiled nature. With views of poppy fields, hillsides lined with apple trees and vistas across the Seine, paintings such as the present work confirm Monet as a true pleinairiste, fascinated by the changing effects of light through the seasons.