National Gallery of Art :: The Collection :: The Bridge at Argenteuil
  • Overview
  • Inscription
  • Provenance
  • Exhibition History
  • Bibliography

Overview

From a distance of ten feet or so, Monet's brushstrokes blend to yield a convincing view of the Seine and the pleasure boats that drew tourists to Argenteuil. Up close, however, each dab of paint is distinct, and the scene dissolves into a mosaic of paint—brilliant, unblended tones of blue, red, green, yellow. In the water, quick, fluid skips of the brush mimic the lapping surface. In the trees, thicker paint is applied with denser, stubbier strokes. The figure in the sailboat is only a ghostly wash of dusty blue, the women rowing nearby are indicated by mere shorthand.

In the early years of impressionism, Monet, Renoir, and others strove to capture the fleeting effects of light and atmosphere on the landscape and to transcribe directly and quickly their sensory experience of it. Monet advised the American artist Lilla Cabot Perry, "When you go out to paint, try to forget what objects you have before you, a tree, a house, a field or whatever. Merely think here is a little square of blue, here an oblong of pink, here a streak of yellow, and paint it just as it looks to you, the exact color and shape, until it gives your own naïve impression of the scene before you."

Inscription

lower right: Claude Monet

Marks and Labels

null

Provenance

(Durand-Ruel, Paris); sold 1890 to Henri Vever [1854-1943], Paris; (his sale, Galerie Georges Petit, Paris, 1-2 February 1897, no. 78); purchased by (Georges Petit) for Marie-Albert, vicomte de Curel [1827-1908], Paris;[1] by descent in his family; (de Curel sale, Palais Galliera, Paris, 21 June 1961, lot C);[2] purchased by (Hector Brame, Paris) for Mr. Paul Mellon, Upperville, Virginia; gift 1983 to NGA.

[1] See reports of the Vever sale published in the Gazette de l'Hôtel Drouot no. 35-36, 4-5 February 1897 and the Chroniques des Arts et de la Curiosité, as well as the annotated sale catalogue, copies in NGA curatorial files. The NGA picture was not included in the 25 November 1918 Curel estate sale held at the Galerie Georges Petit (originally scheduled for 3 May 1918). The vicomte de Curel, for whom the painting was purchased, has been identified by François Auffret, Président of La Société des Amis de Jongkind in Paris (founded 1970), with confirmation from the collector's descendants. With M. Auffret's kind permission, his research was shared with the NGA by Dr. Diana Kostyrko (see her e-mails from October through December 2008 in NGA curatorial files).

[2] According to press coverage of the 1961 sale, the picture had been in the collection of Barbara Church, an American collector who lived in Ville-d'Avray and had died the preceding year. However, the sale in which the NGA painting figured actually consisted of six pictures from the de Curel collection; the Barbara Church sale, held the same day at the Palais Galliera, was one of several estate sales of the Church collection held in 1961.

Exhibition History

1966
French Paintings from the Collections of Mr. and Mrs. Paul Mellon and Mrs. Mellon Bruce, National Gallery of Art, Washington, 1966, no. 83, repro.
1986
Gifts to the Nation: Selected Acquisitions from the Collections of Mr. and Mrs. Paul Mellon, National Gallery of Art, Washington, 1986, unnumbered checklist, repro.
1986
Impressionist and Post-Impressionist Masterpieces from the National Gallery of Art, Washington, State Hermitage Museum, Leningrad; State Pushkin Museum of Fine Arts, Moscow, 1986, no. 19, repro.
1995
Claude Monet: 1840-1926, The Art Institute of Chicago, 1995, no. 37, repro., as The Highway Bridge at Argenteuil.
1996
Impressionists on the Seine: A Celebration of Renoir's "Luncheon of the Boating Party", The Phillips Collection, Washington, D.C., 1996-1997, pl. 31, repro.
1999
An Enduring Legacy: Masterpieces from the Collection of Mr. and Mrs. Paul Mellon, National Gallery of Art, Washington, D.C., 1999-2000, no cat.
2000
The Impressionists at Argenteuil, National Gallery of Art, Washington, D.C.; Wadsworth Atheneum, Hartford, 2000, no. 28, repro., as The Highway Bridge and Boat Basin.

Bibliography

1966
Goldwater, Robert. "The Glory that was France." Art News 65 (March 1966): 86, repro. 45.
1974
Wildenstein 1974, no. 312.
1984
Walker, John. National Gallery of Art, Washington. Rev. ed. New York, 1984: 487, no. 719, color repro.
1985
European Paintings: An Illustrated Catalogue. National Gallery of Art, Washington, 1985: 281, repro.
1991
Kopper, Philip. America's National Gallery of Art: A Gift to the Nation. New York, 1991: 277, 279, color repro.
1996
Wildenstein 1996, II:no. 312.
1997
Kelder, Diane. The Great Book of French Impressionism, 1997, no. 127, repro.
2000
The Impressionists at Argenteuil. Exh. cat. National Gallery of Art, Washington; Wadsworth Atheneum Museum of Art, Hartford, 2000: no. 28.
2004
Hand, John Oliver. National Gallery of Art: Master Paintings from the Collection. Washington and New York, 2004: 387, no. 321, color repro.
2012
Trescott, Jacqueline. “Making an Even Better Impression.” Washington Post 135, no. 146 (April 29, 2012): E6, repro.

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