Detail of Path on the Island of St. Martin, Vetheuil by Monet in the Philadelphia Museum of Art, January 2012

Path on the Island of Saint Martin, Vétheuil

Claude Monet, French, 1840 - 1926

Date: 1881

Medium: Oil on canvas

Dimensions: 29 x 23 1/2 inches (73.7 x 59.7 cm)

Curatorial Department: European Painting before 1900, Johnson Collection

Object Location: Gallery 152, European Art 1850-1900, first floor (Toll Gallery)

Accession Number: 2011-58-2

Credit Line: 125th Anniversary Acquisition. Gift of John C. Haas and Chara C. Haas, 2011

Label:
In 1879 Monet moved with his family to the village of Vétheuil on the north bank of the Seine. For the next three years the town, situated on a steep bank above the river and dominated by the tower of its twelfth-century church, became the artist’s central landscape motif. In the summer of 1881, following a particularly severe winter, Monet painted lush views of the town from the island of Saint Martin which was located in the Seine to the south of Vétheuil. The artist’s style in this period evolved from the blunt, broad strokes of the 1870s to delicate, rhythmic brushwork that reads like a gauze of spun sugar. The poplars in the background appear as twirling configurations of blue and green, while the clouds are painted in a broad and wet manner that suggests the flat quality of the sky at midday.

Provenance: Durand-Ruel, Paris, possibly purchased from the artist in October or November, 1881; with Durand-Ruel, New York, c. 1886; sold to Potter Palmer, Chicago, February 1892; with Durand-Ruel, New York, 1901; Arthur B. Emmons (d. 1922), Newport, RI, 1905; his sale, American Art Association, New York, January 14-15, 1920, no. 28; purchased by Knoedler & Co. (or possibly Durand-Ruel) [1]; with Durand-Ruel, Paris and New York, by 1936; sold to Otto Haas (1872-1960), Haverford, PA, January 4, 1936 [2]; by inheritance to his son John Charles Haas (1918-2011) and Chara Cooper Haas (1927-2012), Villanova, PA; Chara Cooper Haas; gift to PMA, 2011. 1. The preceding provenance per Daniel Wildenstein, Monet, or, The triumph of Impressionism, vol. 2: Catalogue raisonné = Werkverzeichnis, Cologne and Paris, 1996, no. 678. Wildenstein lists the buyer at the 1920 sale as Durand-Ruel; however, the annotated copy of the sale catalogue belonging to the Sterling and Francine Clark Art Institute Library gives the buyer as Knoedler. 2. Copy of dated receipt from Durand-Ruel to Haas in curatorial file.

Text from: www.philamuseum.org/collections/permanent/148783.html?mulR=1084081816|24