The Artist's Garden in Argenteuil (A Corner of the Garden with Dahlias)

1873

Claude Monet

Artist, French, 1840 - 1926

A bank of flowering bushes, possibly roses, fills most of an enclosed garden in front of a white house in this horizontal landscape painting. The scene is created using visible dabs and strokes of scarlet red, pale yellow, rust orange, and shell pink for the roses and kelly, teal, and forest green for the greenery. The cloud of flowers fills most of the left two-thirds of the composition, and dabs of shamrock and moss green and delphinium blue indicate grass and other plants around it. To our right of the roses, a couple walks near a fence in the distance. Painted with only a few strokes and touches of paint, one person wears a white dress and hat, and the other a dark gray suit and hat. A celery-green tree grows up the right edge of the canvas and curves toward the ivory-white, three-story house. The upper story is tucked under a pitched, ash-brown roof, and aquamarine-blue shutters flank the windows. More trees surround the house and line the fence. Brushstrokes in white and nickel gray suggest clouds against the ultramarine-blue sky. The artist signed and dated the painting in black near the lower left corner: “Claude Monet 73.”

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On View

West Building Main Floor, Gallery 82

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Artwork overview

Artwork history & notes

Provenance

Purchased December 1873 from the artist by (Durand-Ruel, Paris). Baroux Collection. (Durand-Ruel, Paris), in 1896; Pierre Durand-Ruel [d. 1961] from 1941; his widow, later Mrs. David O. Selznick, New York.[1] (Sam Salz, New York), in 1965. Mr. and Mrs. Konrad H. Matthaei, c. 1966. (Richard L. Feigen & Co., New York); sold 1970 to Mr. and Mrs. Philip J. Levin, New York;[2] gift (partial and promised) 1991 to NGA, gift completed 2001.
[1] Provenance according to Wildenstein 1974 catalogue raisonné, volume 1, no. 286. Additional information provided from the Durand-Ruel archives, courtesy of the National Gallery, London (email dated 1 December 2014 in NGA curatorial files).
[2] According to Janice Levin, quoted in The Washington Post, 21 March 1991 (copy in NGA curatorial files).

Associated Names

Exhibition History

1899

  • Exposition de Tableaux de Monet, Pissarro, Renoir & Sisley, Galeries Durand-Ruel, Paris, 1899, no. 2

1905

  • Pictures by Boudin, Cézanne, Degas, Manet, Monet, Morisot, Pissarro, Renoir, Sisley, Grafton Galleries, London, 1905, no. 149

1910

  • Manet-Monet, Galerie Miethke, Vienna, 1910, no. 29, as Monet's Garden in Argenteuil.

1914

  • Art Français: Exposition d'Art décoratif contemporain 1800-1885, Grosvenor House, London, 1914, no. 49.

1924

  • Exposition Claude Monet, organisée au bénéfice des victimes de la Catastrophe du Japon, Galeries Georges Petit, Paris, 1924, no. 42 as La Maison dans les fleurs.

1928

  • Claude Monet 1840-1926, Galerien Thannhauser, Berlin, 1928, no. 19, repro.

1949

  • Impressionisten, Kunsthalle Basel, 1949, no. 79.

1959

  • Exposition Claude Monet 1840-1926, Galerie Durand-Ruel, Paris, 1959, no. 9

1975

  • Paintings by Monet, The Art Institute of Chicago, 1975, no. 35, repro.

1991

  • Art for the Nation: Gifts in Honor of the 50th Anniversary of the National Gallery of Art, National Gallery of Art, Washington, D.C., 1991, 166-167, color repro.

1995

  • Claude Monet: 1840-1926, The Art Institute of Chicago, 1995, no. 32, repro., as Monet's Garden at Argenteuil (The Dahlias).

2000

  • The Impressionists at Argenteuil, National Gallery of Art, Washington, D.C.; Wadsworth Atheneum, Hartford, 2000, no. 20, repro., as A Corner of the Garden with Dahlias.

2002

  • A Very Private Collection: Janice H. Levin's Impressionist Pictures, The Metropolitan Museum of Art, New York, 2002-2003, no. 4, repro.

2004

  • Monet's Garden, Kunsthaus Zürich, 2004-2005, no. 11, repro.

  • The Impressionist Eye, Birmingham Museum of Art, Alabama, 2004, no cat.

2005

  • An Impressionist Eye: Painting and Sculpture from the Philip and Janice Levin Foundation, Taft Museum of Art, Cincinnati, 2005, no cat.

2007

  • Monet: L'art de Monet et sa postérité, The National Art Center, Tokyo, 2007, no. 23, repro.

2010

  • Impressionist Gardens, National Gallery of Scotland, Edinburgh; Museo Thyssen-Bornemisza, Madrid, 2010-2011, no. 19, repro.

2014

  • Inventing Impressionism: Paul Durand-Ruel and the Modern Art Market [Paul Durand-Ruel: Le Pari de l'Impressionnisme], Musée du Luxembourg, Paris; The National Gallery, London; Philadelphia Museum of Art, 2014-2015, French cat., no. 43, repro.; English cat., no. 38, repro.

2015

  • Painting the Modern Garden: Monet to Matisse, Cleveland Museum of Art; Royal Academy of Arts, London, 2015-2016, no. 1, repro.

2017

  • Monet: Framing Life, Detroit Institute of Arts, 2017-2018, no. 3, repro.

Bibliography

1973

  • Rewald, John. The History of Impressionism. Rev. ed. New York, 1973: 284, repro.

1974

  • Wildenstein, Daniel. Claude Monet. Biographie et catalogue raisonné. 5 vols. Lausanne and Paris, 1974-1991: I:no. 286.

1982

  • Tucker, Paul Hayes. Monet at Argenteuil. New Haven, 1982: 143, repro.

1997

  • Bailey, Colin B. Renoir's Portraits: Impressions of an age. Exh. cat. National Gallery of Canada, Ottawa; Art Institute of Chicago; Kimbell Art Museum, Fort Worth. New Haven and London, 1997: fig. 133.

2007

  • Renoir Landscapes 1865-1883. Exh. cat. The National Gallery, London; National Gallery of Canada, Ottawa; Philadelphia Museum of Art. London, 2007: 135-136, fig. 78.

2013

  • Harris, Neil. Capital Culture: J. Carter Brown, the National Gallery of Art, and the Reinvention of the Museum Experience. Chicago and London, 2013: 422.

Inscriptions

lower left: Claude Monet.73.

Wikidata ID

Q20188762

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