A Closer Look At

Throughout their lives together, Alan and Simone Hartman amassed an exquisite collection of Impressionist paintings. A shining gem of their collection is La Seine près de Giverny by Claude Monet— an exuberant painting that captures the artist's return to Giverny after a challenging time away.

Ahead of the collection's inaugural sale on 14 December, we take a closer look at the masterpiece which has come to the market for the first time in 45 years.

On January 12, 1888, Claude Monet boarded an overnight train from Paris to the Cap d’Antibes peninsula to escape the northern winter and find a fresh landscape for depiction. He stayed at Château de la Pinède, a manor house which had recently been converted into a painters' retreat.

The following months presented a mix of highs and lows. Though he finished several successful paintings of the picturesque town, he struggled greatly with his creative process, and it was with great relief that he returned to his partner and family in Giverny in May 1888.

A Joyous Return

La Seine près de Giverny was painted in 1888, upon Monet’s return, and should be considered in the context of his happy homecoming after the stress and struggles he experienced in Cap d’Antibes. The painting depicts the River Seine as it flowed near the artist’s rural home, forty-five miles northwest of Paris.

The exuberant and brightly coloured scene shows a tranquil river Seine on a sunny day in the late spring or early summer. A turquoise sky is filled with rose-tinted clouds, and the trees on the riverbank reflect their foliage in shades of red and green. The hills of Porte-Villez can be seen in the distance, and there is not a single human in sight.

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A Lifelong Fascination

Monet lived by the Seine for nearly his entire life, and it was an enduring sense of inspiration for his work. Early in his career, he depicted recreation and industry along the river. However, over time, in true Impressionist fashion, he became enamoured with translating the evanescent effects of light and shimmering reflections as they played on the water’s surface.

He captured La Seine près de Giverny roughly a mile south-west of Le Pressoir, producing a stunningly nuanced and delicate landscape of the river he so admired. Notable alongside his vivid palette is the bravura brushwork. The variegated strokes range from thick, horizontal marks capturing the ripples on the water and the reflection of the trees, to the richly textured dabs of layered paint denoting the foliage on those trees, and the more smoothly executed passages designating the sky.

When Monet painted La Seine près de Giverny, Impressionism was experiencing backlash. Its focus on optical effects was viewed as a source of weakness and transience, and a new type of painting, Neo-Impressionism was emerging. Therefore, this masterpiece represents not only a joyful return to the comforts and beauty of Giverny, but also a forceful assertion of the continued relevance and vitality of Impressionism.

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