''Bain à la Grenouillère'' is an 1869 painting by the French

impressionist Impressionism was a 19th-century art movement characterized by relatively small, thin, yet visible brush strokes, open composition, emphasis on accurate depiction of light in its changing qualities (often accentuating the effects of the passage ...

painter,

Claude Monet Oscar-Claude Monet (, , ; 14 November 1840 – 5 December 1926) was a French painter and founder of impressionist painting who is seen as a key precursor to modernism, especially in his attempts to paint nature as he perceived it. During ...

. (Oil on canvas, 74.6 cm x 99.7 cm). It depicts "Flowerpot Island", also known as the Camembert, and the gangplank to La Grenouillère, a floating restaurant and boat-hire on the Seine at

Croissy-sur-Seine Croissy-sur-Seine (, literally ''Croissy on Seine'') is a commune in the Yvelines department in the Île-de-France region in north-central France. It is a suburban town on the western outskirts of Paris. Many expatriates reside in Croissy, given a ...

. He was accompanied by

Pierre-Auguste Renoir Pierre-Auguste Renoir (; 25 February 1841 – 3 December 1919) was a French artist who was a leading painter in the development of the Impressionist style. As a celebrator of beauty and especially feminine sensuality, it has been said that "R ...

, who also painted the scene at the same time.

History

Monet wrote on September 25, 1869 in a letter to fellow artist

Frédéric Bazille Jean Frédéric Bazille (December 6, 1841 – November 28, 1870) was a French Impressionist painter. Many of Bazille's major works are examples of figure painting in which he placed the subject figure within a landscape painted ''en plein air''. ...

, "I do have a dream, a painting (''tableau''), the baths of La Grenouillère, for which I have made some bad sketches (''pochades''), but it is only a dream.

, who has just spent two months here, also wants to do this painting." Monet and Renoir, both desperately poor, were quite close at the time. Auguste Renoir - La Grenouillère

The painting here and one in the

London London is the capital and largest city of England and the United Kingdom, with a population of just under 9 million. It stands on the River Thames in south-east England at the head of a estuary down to the North Sea, and has been a majo ...

National Gallery The National Gallery is an art museum in Trafalgar Square in the City of Westminster, in Central London, England. Founded in 1824, it houses a collection of over 2,300 paintings dating from the mid-13th century to 1900. The current Director o ...

(''Bathers at La Grenouillere'', oil on canvas, 73 x 92 cm) are probably the sketches mentioned by Monet in his letter. A bigger size painting, now lost but formerly in the Arnhold collection in

Berlin Berlin ( , ) is the capital and largest city of Germany by both area and population. Its 3.7 million inhabitants make it the European Union's most populous city, according to population within city limits. One of Germany's sixteen constitue ...

, may well have been the "tableau" that he dreamed of. The broad, constructive brushstrokes here are clearly those of a sketch. For his exhibition pictures Monet usually sought a more delicate and carefully calibrated surface at this time. An almost identical composition of the same subject by Renoir, '' La Grenouillère'', is in the

Nationalmuseum Nationalmuseum (or National Museum of Fine Arts) is the national gallery of Sweden, located on the peninsula Blasieholmen in central Stockholm. The museum's operations stretches far beyond the borders of Blasieholmen, the nationalmuseum manag ...

Stockholm Stockholm () is the Capital city, capital and List of urban areas in Sweden by population, largest city of Sweden as well as the List of urban areas in the Nordic countries, largest urban area in Scandinavia. Approximately 980,000 people liv ...

. The two friends were undoubtedly working side by side. Monet - Bathers at La Grenouillère

La Grenouillère was a popular middle-class resort consisting of a spa, a boating establishment and a floating café. Optimistically promoted as "Trouville-sur-Seine", it was located on the

Seine ) , mouth_location = Le Havre/Honfleur , mouth_coordinates = , mouth_elevation = , progression = , river_system = Seine basin , basin_size = , tributaries_left = Yonne, Loing, Eure, Risle , tributarie ...

near

Bougival Bougival () is a suburban commune in the Yvelines department in the Île-de-France region in north-central France. It is located west from the centre of Paris, on the left bank of the River Seine, on the departmental border with Hauts-de-Seine. I ...

, easily accessible by train from Paris and had just been favoured with a visit by Emperor

Napoleon III Napoleon III (Charles Louis Napoléon Bonaparte; 20 April 18089 January 1873) was the first President of France (as Louis-Napoléon Bonaparte) from 1848 to 1852 and the last monarch of France as Emperor of the French from 1852 to 1870. A nephew ...

with his wife and son. Monet and Renoir both recognized in La Grenouillère an ideal subject for the images of leisure they hoped to sell. La Grenouillère is the setting for

Guy de Maupassant Henri René Albert Guy de Maupassant (, ; ; 5 August 1850 – 6 July 1893) was a 19th-century French author, remembered as a master of the short story form, as well as a representative of the Naturalist school, who depicted human lives, destin ...

's 1881 short story "La femme de Paul". It is described as a place where "we smell, deep in our nostrils, the world's froth, all its distinguished scoundrels, the mould of Parisian society: a mixture of salesmen, show offs, lowly journalists, chaperoned young men, corrupt amateurs of the stock exchange, cretinous party animals, desiccated old pleasure seekers; a shady crowd of all suspect beings, half well known, half lost, half greeted, half dishonoured, swindlers, rascals, suppliers of women, lords of industry with a dignified look, the look of a blusterer which seems to be saying: "The first one that calls me a rogue, I'll bust him"."La Maison Tellier, Guy de Maupassant, p 151

Description

As in his earlier picture of the ''

Garden at Sainte-Adresse The ''Garden at Sainte-Adresse'' is a painting by the French impressionist painter Claude Monet. (Oil on canvas, ). The painting was acquired by the Metropolitan Museum of Art after an auction sale at Christie's in December 1967, under the Frenc ...

'', Monet concentrated on repetitive elements – the ripples on the water, the foliage, the boats, the human figures – to weave a fabric of brushstrokes which, although emphatically brushstrokes, retain a strong descriptive quality.

Provenance

The painting is now in the

New York New York most commonly refers to: * New York City, the most populous city in the United States, located in the state of New York * New York (state), a state in the northeastern United States New York may also refer to: Film and television * '' ...

Metropolitan Museum of Art The Metropolitan Museum of Art of New York City, colloquially "the Met", is the largest art museum in the Americas. Its permanent collection contains over two million works, divided among 17 curatorial departments. The main building at 1000 ...

. It was bequeathed by Mrs. H. O. Havemeyer in 1929.

References

External links

''Impressionism: a centenary exhibition''
an exhibition catalog from The Metropolitan Museum of Art (fully available online as PDF), which contains material on this painting (145-149)
Claude Monet, ''Bathing at La Grenouillère''
ColourLex. Contains information on all paintings by Monet and Renoir painted in La Grenouillère and also a pigment analysis of the painting in the National Gallery in London. {{DEFAULTSORT:Bain a la Grenouillere Paintings by Claude Monet Paintings in the collection of the Metropolitan Museum of Art 1869 paintings Ships in art

History

Description

Provenance

References

Further reading

External links