Claude Monet

Eugène Murer, Paris (acquired from the artist in December 1878)
Oscar Schmitz, Dresden (acquired in 1900 and put on deposit at the Kunsthalle, Basel at the time of his death in 1933)
Wildenstein & Co., Paris, London and New York (acquired from the above)
Major E.O. Kay, Nr. Droitwich, Worcester (acquired in 1944 and sold: Sotheby’s, London, 14 December 1955, lot 171)
Acquired at the above sale

Paris, 28 avenue de l’Opéra, 4e exposition de peinture…, 1879, no. 162
Dresden, Internationale Kunstausstellung, 1926
Zürich, Kunsthaus, Sammlung Oscar Schmitz, 1932, no. 34
Sheffield, Graves Art Gallery, 1953

Paul Fechter, “Die Sammlung Schmitz,” Kunst und Künstler, Berlin, October 1909, discussed p. 21
Marie Dormoy, “La collection Schmitz à Dresde,” L’Amour de l’Art, Paris, 1926, discussed p. 342
O. Schurer, “Internationale Kunstausstellung, Dresden,” Deutsche Kunst und Dekoration, Darmstadt, February 1927, discussed p. 273
Wildenstein & Co., The Oscar Schmitz Collection, Paris, 1936, no. 43, illustrated p. 97
Daniel Wildenstein, Claude Monet, Biographie et catalogue raisonné, vol. I, Paris, 1974, no. 496, illustrated p. 329
Ruth Berson, The New Painting, Impressionism 1874-1886, vol. II, San Francisco, 1996, illustrated p. 136
Daniel Wildenstein, Monet, Catalogue Raisonné, vol. II, Cologne, 1996, no. 496, illustrated p. 196

The present work is a depiction of Lavacourt, a village that was situated along the Seine about 45 kilometers north-west of Paris.  On the opposite bank of the river was the medieval town of Vétheuil, where Monet and his family shared a house with Ernest and Alice Hoschedé between 1878-81.  The two families owned a boat that they moored at the edge of their garden, and Monet would often venture out onto the river to paint.  One of his favorite destinations on his bateau atelier was Lavacourt, where he completed several canvases of the local landscape and of Vétheuil as seen from across the water.  In this composition from 1878, he depicts the Lavacourt riverbank looking downstream, and features the chemin de halage, or towpath, that was used for pulling barges from the water to the houses that lined the shore.  This same view is depicted in four other canvases dating from the same year (Wildenstein nos. 495, 497, 498 and 499), but the vantage and time of day differ in each composition.  These pictures explore the effects of light and shadow, a subject that fascinated the Impressionists and that Monet would explore further in his series paintings of the late 1880s and 1890s.

As was common among many of Monet’s pictures from this period, the central focus of this composition is the natural landscape.  The trees and shoreline dominate the composition, whereas houses and other signs of human presence are relegated to the periphery. According to Paul Hayes Tucker, this was not uncommon for many of Monet’s pictures of this era:  “Monet appears alone in a place where the earth and sky, land and water, the artist and the environment are in perfect accord.  Satisfying deep yearnings within himself, Monet makes no pretensions in these scenes.  He welcomes no intrusions; everything has its place; everything belongs.  There is a new kind of order here:  it is nature’s, not man’s” (Paul Hayes Tucker, Claude Monet, Life and Art, New Haven and London, 1995, p. 101). 

Chemin de halage à Lavacourt was completed at the height of Monet’s involvement with the Impressionist painters, and was one of pictures included in the 4th annual Impressionist group exhibition in 1879.  Shortly after finishing this canvas, Monet sold it to Eugène Murer, a Parisian restauranteur who often received paintings from his Impressionist artist clients in exchange for meals.  This picture was later acquired by the German Industrialist, Oscar Schmitz, whose collection of Impressionist and Post-Impressionist paintings was among the most impressive in Europe during the early part of the 20^th century.