Two paintings by Claude Monet that have remained in private collections for more than a century will be auctioned at Sotheby ’s in Paris on April 16 as part of the Art Moderne et Contemporain Evening Auction. The works,Vétheuil , effet du matin(Vétheuil, effet du matin) (1901) and Les Îles de Port-Villez (The Islands of Port-Villez) (1883), represent two distinct moments in the Impressionist painter’s career and offer a glimpse into his painterly exploration of the Seine landscape and the effects of natural light. Both paintings have not been exhibited to the public for about a century.
The two canvases will be among the main lots in the sale. Vétheuil, effet du matin has an estimate of between €6 million and €8 million, while Les Îles de Port-Villez is estimated at between €3 million and €5 million. The works were made about twenty years apart and in locations separated by about twenty kilometers, but they both turn out to be related to the river landscape of the Seine Valley, one of the most recurrent subjects in Monet’s production.
The painting Les Îles de Port-Villez dates from 1883, the year Monet moved to Giverny, a place destined to become the center of his artistic activity for more than forty years. The artist arrived in the village in the spring of that year, after a period spent along the Seine between Argenteuil, Vétheuil and Poissy, places in which he had lived and worked while deepening his study of the river landscape. At the end of April 1883 he settled in a house in Giverny, where he remained until his death in 1926.
Shortly after the move, Monet wrote to his gallerist Paul Durand-Ruel expressing enthusiasm for his new surroundings and the pictorial possibilities offered by the area. In a letter quoted in the catalog of Monet’s Year at Giverny: Beyond Impressionism exhibition organized in 1978 by the Metropolitan Museum of Art in New York, the artist declared, “Once settled in, I hope to produce masterpieces, because I am extremely fond of this countryside.”
Les Îles de Port-Villez was executed a few weeks after the move and testifies to the initial phase of the painter’s discovery of the area. Monet made the painting aboard his boat-atelier, the floating studio that allowed him to observe the landscape directly from the river. The painting focuses on one of the most recurrent motifs in his painting: reflections on the water of the Seine. The painting, which has remained in private hands for about 115 years, has been known until recently only through black-and-white photographs; the Paris auction will therefore represent the first opportunity for the public to see it in color.
The other work, Vétheuil, effet du matin, was made in 1901 and belongs to a small series of views devoted to the village of Vétheuil. Monet was familiar with the locality, where he had lived between 1878 and 1881 and had already depicted it in numerous landscapes in the 1880s. In the 1901 painting, the artist returns to observe the same place with a gaze that has matured after more than two decades of pictorial experimentation.
The painting is an example of the so-called Monet series, one of the artist’s most important contributions to the development of Impressionism. In these works the painter chooses a fixed motif and repeatedly depicts it in different weather and light conditions. Among the best-known series are those devoted to hay sheaves and Rouen Cathedral, cycles that show the artist’s progressive interest in variations in light and color.
Vétheuil, effet du matin marks an advanced phase of such research. The painting uses a square format that would also become characteristic for the later Water Lilies series, to which Monet would devote the last decades of his life. In this composition, the river occupies more than half of the paint surface, leaving the artist to focus on the effects of natural light and the overall atmosphere of the landscape. The canvas belongs to a private European collection and has not been exhibited publicly for about 98 years. Historically and stylistically, the work is placed at a transitional moment in Monet’s production, when the artist gradually approached the experiments that would lead to the long season of water lily paintings.
Although made at different times in their careers, the two paintings share a common interest in the perception of landscape. Monet focuses his attention on the light and atmospheric sensations that transform the landscape over the course of the day. The Seine River, the central element of both compositions, thus becomes a space of visual reflection where water, sky and vegetation merge through reflections and chromatic vibrations.
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| Two Monets never seen in a century at auction in Paris: estimates up to 8 million euros |
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