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Lot Essay
Painted in 1885, Printemps à Giverny, effet d’après-midi captures with lyrical freshness springtime in the small village of Giverny—a place that would become the core inspiration of Claude Monet’s art. The fruit trees in full blossom, the medieval church of Sainte-Radegonde, and the red-roofed houses bathed in radiant afternoon sunlight exemplify Monet’s signature technique: the immediacy of plein-air observation, the shimmering sensation of light, and his ability to transform fleeting natural beauty into enduring pictorial form. This luminous landscape was acquired by Monet’s most influential dealer Paul Durand-Ruel in September 1885, and later held in two of the most distinguished Impressionist collections in America.
Monet moved to Giverny with his family in the spring of 1883, settling into a pink stucco farmhouse with two acres of land that provided him with stability and inspiration. “Once settled, I hope to produce masterpieces,” Monet wrote optimistically to Durand-Ruel that May, “because I like the countryside very much” (quoted in Monet’s Years at Giverny: Beyond Impressionism, exh. cat., The Metropolitan Museum of Art, New York, 1978, pp. 15-16). The surrounding meadows, poplar groves, orchards, and winding tributaries of the Seine provided him with a range of motifs which he would explore extensively through the ensuing decades. In this fertile period, Monet refined the working methods that would define his remaining career: painting in series, depicting the same view at different times of day and seasons, to capture the subtlest transitions of atmosphere and light.
Printemps à Giverny, effet d’après-midi marks the beginning of a new artistic chapter for Monet, revealing the early traces of his practice of painting in series and his habit of working on multiple canvases simultaneously. Monet painted two versions of this orchard view, both oriented northward across the blossoms. “He is always working on two or three canvases at once: he brings them all along and puts them on the easel as the light changes. This is his method,” explained the journalist Georges Jeanniot, who accompanied Monet on an excursion into the countryside near Giverny in 1888 (quoted in ibid., p. 21). The morning view in this pair of canvases captures a softer, more diffused light, filtered through a sky veiled with clouds. (Wildenstein, no. 986).
The present painting depicts an afternoon scene, suffused with a warm raking light that casts a glow on the façades of the houses and church, while the clouds above sweep across the sky in vigorous, directional brushstrokes. In these two works, Monet captures the rhythms of nature at different times of day, a mode of observation that would become increasingly central to his painterly output.
A hymn to spring, Printemps à Giverny, effet d’après-midi records a horizontal band of fruit trees, their blossoms flecked with pink and yellow. The viewer’s eye is carried across the orchard and gently led into the distance, where the village rises above the trees. The soft shadows of the architecture echo the drifting tones of the sky, conveying the sensation of a bright, tranquil spring afternoon.
The painting also speaks to the broader story of Impressionism’s reception in the United States. Acquired directly by Monet’s dealer Paul Durand-Ruel in 1885, the work was included in the landmark 1886 exhibition of Impressionist art at the National Academy of Design in New York and purchased by Erwin Davis, one of the earliest American collectors of Impressionism. Davis kept the present work until shortly before his death in 1899, and returned a large group of Impressionist paintings back to Durand-Ruel. The dealer then sold the painting to Ellen Henderson in 1913, the elder sister of New Orleans sugar magnate Hunt Henderson and remained in their family collection for more than a century.
Monet’s paintings of Giverny resonated both with his contemporaries and younger generations of artists, his visions of renewal and impermanence in nature becoming an important touchstone for painters such as Vincent van Gogh, Paul Cezanne, David Hockney, and Nicolas Party. Though each artist approached nature differently, they often drew from Monet’s modern vocabulary—his sensitivity to light, color, and atmosphere, shaping how artists perceive and reinterpret the world around them.
Monet moved to Giverny with his family in the spring of 1883, settling into a pink stucco farmhouse with two acres of land that provided him with stability and inspiration. “Once settled, I hope to produce masterpieces,” Monet wrote optimistically to Durand-Ruel that May, “because I like the countryside very much” (quoted in Monet’s Years at Giverny: Beyond Impressionism, exh. cat., The Metropolitan Museum of Art, New York, 1978, pp. 15-16). The surrounding meadows, poplar groves, orchards, and winding tributaries of the Seine provided him with a range of motifs which he would explore extensively through the ensuing decades. In this fertile period, Monet refined the working methods that would define his remaining career: painting in series, depicting the same view at different times of day and seasons, to capture the subtlest transitions of atmosphere and light.
Printemps à Giverny, effet d’après-midi marks the beginning of a new artistic chapter for Monet, revealing the early traces of his practice of painting in series and his habit of working on multiple canvases simultaneously. Monet painted two versions of this orchard view, both oriented northward across the blossoms. “He is always working on two or three canvases at once: he brings them all along and puts them on the easel as the light changes. This is his method,” explained the journalist Georges Jeanniot, who accompanied Monet on an excursion into the countryside near Giverny in 1888 (quoted in ibid., p. 21). The morning view in this pair of canvases captures a softer, more diffused light, filtered through a sky veiled with clouds. (Wildenstein, no. 986).
The present painting depicts an afternoon scene, suffused with a warm raking light that casts a glow on the façades of the houses and church, while the clouds above sweep across the sky in vigorous, directional brushstrokes. In these two works, Monet captures the rhythms of nature at different times of day, a mode of observation that would become increasingly central to his painterly output.
A hymn to spring, Printemps à Giverny, effet d’après-midi records a horizontal band of fruit trees, their blossoms flecked with pink and yellow. The viewer’s eye is carried across the orchard and gently led into the distance, where the village rises above the trees. The soft shadows of the architecture echo the drifting tones of the sky, conveying the sensation of a bright, tranquil spring afternoon.
The painting also speaks to the broader story of Impressionism’s reception in the United States. Acquired directly by Monet’s dealer Paul Durand-Ruel in 1885, the work was included in the landmark 1886 exhibition of Impressionist art at the National Academy of Design in New York and purchased by Erwin Davis, one of the earliest American collectors of Impressionism. Davis kept the present work until shortly before his death in 1899, and returned a large group of Impressionist paintings back to Durand-Ruel. The dealer then sold the painting to Ellen Henderson in 1913, the elder sister of New Orleans sugar magnate Hunt Henderson and remained in their family collection for more than a century.
Monet’s paintings of Giverny resonated both with his contemporaries and younger generations of artists, his visions of renewal and impermanence in nature becoming an important touchstone for painters such as Vincent van Gogh, Paul Cezanne, David Hockney, and Nicolas Party. Though each artist approached nature differently, they often drew from Monet’s modern vocabulary—his sensitivity to light, color, and atmosphere, shaping how artists perceive and reinterpret the world around them.