Claude Monet | Autograph letter signed, to his wife Alice, on London fog, 1900

Claude Monet

Autograph letter signed ("Claude"), to his wife Alice

writing hurriedly as he is about to go out to sketch the Houses of Parliament ("...I’m going to the hospital to make some sketches..." [trans]), on the London fog ("...This morning and yesterday, there was a fog that made it impossible to see anything. I had to stand my watch, as you know. The fog has just lifted, and nevertheless, I don’t want to leave you without a few lines..." [trans.]), with social news of his son Michel and friend "Mr Dewhurst", probably the artist Wynford Dewhurst, and a postscript about a returned package, 4 pages, 8vo, 13 March [1900], headed stationery of the Savoy Hotel, London

Monet travelled in 1899 to London, and lived whilst there at the Savoy hotel, and made a series of paintings whilst there, including 41 paintings of Waterloo bridge, 34 of Charing Cross bridge and 19 of the House of Parliament. This intimate letter to his wife Alice, at their home in Giverny, gives a sense of his life and social circle there, his impression of the weather, and the context of his famous series of views of the Houses of Parliament, which all share the same vantage point from a room on the second floor of St Thomas's Hospital, which Monet mentions, on south bank of the Thames