1885
oil
canvas
From the collection of Art Institute of Chicago
Dominant colour
Boats on the Beach at Étretat is a 1885 oil by Claude Monet, a Impressionism work, held at Art Institute of Chicago.
Monet painted sandy cliffs and small boats at Étretat in 1885. The view comes from his hotel window. Boats sit low in the frame while cliffs rise behind them. This pair of paintings shows how Monet worked indoors when bad weather trapped him. He kept up his routine by looking out glass. In letters he called the boats his “caloges,” or beach huts. See these two side by side at the Art Institute of Chicago.
Forced indoors by inclement fall weather, Claude Monet painted Boats on the Beach at Étretat and The Departure of the Boats, Étretat while looking out the window of his room at the Hôtel Blanquet. The two form a pair that share a palette, subject, and vantage point. In one of his daily letters to his companion and future wife, Alice Hoschedé, dated November 24, 1885, Monet he described first Boats on the Beach and then Departure of the Boats : “In the afternoon, I worked in my room on my caloges [retired fishing boats covered with tarred planks and used for storage] in the rain, then I…
Georges Bernaert [this and the following per Wildenstein 1996]. Georges Bernheim, Paris, c. 1907. Marczell de Nemes, Budapest, by 1911 [per Mayer 1911]; sold at the Marczell de Nemes Sale, Galerie Manzi-Joyant, Paris, June 18, 1913, lot 113, to Durand-Ruel, Paris, as an agent for an unnamed person, for 9,500 francs [per Galerie Manzi-Joyant 1913; see also Durand-Ruel Archives, annotated sales catalogue. The Durand-Ruel Archives also has a letter [in French translated here by G. Groom] from Durand-Ruel, Paris, to Durand-Ruel, New York, dated June 24, 1913, saying that they bought several…
Budapest, Szépmüvészeti Múzeum, Nemes Marcell képgyűjteményének kiállítása [Exhibition of paintings in the collection of Marcell von Nemes], 1910, no cat. no. Munich, Königliche Ältere Pinakothek München, Sammlung des Königliche Rates Marczell von Nemes, Budapest, ausgestellten Gemälde, June–Dec. 1911, cat. 34 (ill.), as Strandbild. Düsseldorf, Kunsthalle, Sammlung des Königliche Rates Marczell von Nemes, July–Dec. 1912, cat. 104. Art Institute of Chicago, Exhibition of the Worcester Collection, July 24–Sept. 23, 1923, no cat. Toledo (Ohio) Museum of Art, Paintings by French Impressionists…
Read the full account in the museum source.
Oscar-Claude Monet was born in Paris on November 14, 1840, and raised from the age of five in Le Havre, where he began selling charcoal caricatures as a teenager.
See the richer artist page
