Claude Monet

André Schoeller, Paris

Acquired from the above in 1943 and thence by descent

Denis Rouart and Jean-Dominique Rey, Monet Nymphéas ou les miroirs du temps, Paris, 1972, illustrated p. 181 (as dating from circa 1923-25)

Daniel Wildenstein, Claude Monet, biographie et catalogue raisonné, vol. IV, Lausanne and Paris 1985, no. 1922, illustrated p. 301

Daniel Wildenstein, Monet, catalogue raisonné, vol. IV, Cologne, 1996, no. 1922, illustrated p. 919

In 1893 Monet bought the plot of land beyond the railway line at the bottom of his garden at Giverny, directly opposite the existing garden.  In July of that year he won approval to divert the river Epte with a system of sluices to create a pond, and immediately began construction of the Japanese bridge.  It has been pointed out by Wildenstein that just a few days before purchasing the land, Monet has visited a collection of prints by Utamaro and Hiroshige at Durand-Ruel’s – he had been collecting such prints for years.  He first used the bridge as a motif in 1895, but it was not until 1899 that he turned to the pond and bridge as a subject for a series of eighteen view, twelve examples of which were exhibited at Durand-Ruel from November 22 to December 15, 1900.

On the late summer afternoons when his studio became unbearably hot, Monet would move his easel outdoors and paint in his garden at Giverny (see figs. 1 and 2).   One of his favorite motifs was the Japanese foot bridge that arched over the lily pond.  Beginning in 1918 and then intermittently until 1924, Monet painted nearly two dozen powerfully abstract depictions of this bridge, including the present work.  While each canvas from this series was conceived as an individual work, the decorative impact of the Le pont japonais series as a whole was influenced by Monet's Grandes Décorations project that he was working on during these years.  In some canvases, Monet would stay true to the colors of the actual scene, rendering flecks of white, green and mauve for the trails of wisteria that covered the railing and the balustrade.  In others, he did little to differentiate the bridge from the pond, and his color choices were surprisingly incongruous.

Distinct from his earlier, pre-1910 depictions of the water lilly pond and the footbridge, these later compositions are remarkably daring.  The brushstrokes are heavily laden and equally applied across the surface of the canvas.  This painterly technique brings the eye to the surface of the canvas and contends with the illusions of a receding space and a differentiation between the physical properties of the water, foliage and structure. Monet’s formal tactics are understandable, for what he is attempting to suggest in the Japanese Bridges is the existence of a hybrid environment, a place where East becomes West through the powers of French culture and where nature becomes art through the tenacity of the Impressionist vision.

This picture has been in the family of the present owner for the last fifty years.  In a 1943 photo-certificate of this painting issued by the dealer André Schoeller, the artist's stamped signature appears in the upper left corner.  That stamp has since been removed.

Fig. 1, Monet's garden at Giverny, with the Japanese bridge crossing the lily pond as seen from the west, 1926.  Photograph Nicolas Murray, the Museum of Modern Art, New York

Fig. 2, The artist with his daughter Blance and Simone Salerou on the Japanese bridge, 1920.

Fig. 3, Claude Monet, Le Pont japonais, 1918-1924, oil on canvas, The Minneapolis Institute of Art

Fig. 4,  Claude Monet, La Passerelle sur le bassin aux nymphéas, 1918-1924, oil on canvas, Kunstmuseum Basel