The Museum at Le Havre

Artist: Claude Monet (French, 1840 - 1926)

Original Dimensions: 29 1/2" x 39 3/8"

Location: National Gallery of Art, London

About Artwork: (1873) "During the 1870s when he was living at Argenteuil, on the outskirts of Paris, Monet made several trips back to Le Havre, where he had grown up. The city was a thriving commercial and industrial centre, and France’s most important transatlantic port, with a series of harbours and busy docks. For this picture Monet positioned himself on the wall on the inner harbour facing the city’s museum of fine arts and public library, an impressive building that had been erected in 1845. Despite the fact that it is relatively large, the picture has the sketchy quality of Monet’s smaller canvases. Broken brushwork conveys the gentle movement of rippling water and the fragmented reflections of boats; the sails that almost obscure the architecture are hastily brushed in. A muted palette, consisting mostly of greyish blues and browns, relieved by touches of warmer orange, conjures up the atmosphere of a northern port under an overcast sky." - (National Gallery of Art, London)