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From a high perspective, we look beyond two overlapping, emerald-green hills to a body of powder-blue water dotted with sailboats in this loosely painted horizontal landscape. Closest to us, the hills create a shallow V that spans the lower third of the composition, with the right-hand hill rising to more than halfway up the right edge. The hills are painted with dashes and long strokes mostly in seafoam, shamrock, and celery green, with some swipes of peach, goldenrod yellow, and royal blue. On the hill to our left, one woman sits and the other stands next to her. They wear hats, long-sleeved, fitted jackets, and long skirts in tones of dusky pink and dove gray. A touch of peach on the seated woman, to our left, gives the impression of a pale face. A red veil or scarf at the back of the other woman’s hat is lifted, as if in the wind. The water is painted with blended strokes of pale blue, light turquoise, smoky mauve pink, and touches of soft peach. The horizon comes two-thirds of the way up the composition, and the sky is painted with the same tones of blue, green, and peach to suggest a screen of clouds. Triangles and dashes of slate blue suggest about three dozen sailboats, rowboats, and one steamship in the rippling water. Squiggles of teal and sage green create reflections for some of the boats. The brushstrokes are visible throughout. In some areas, the paint is so thinly applied that the texture of the canvas shows through, especially in the sky. The artist signed the work in the lower left corner: “Claude Monet 82.”

Claude Monet

Cliffs at Pourville, 1882

Not on View

Medium

oil on canvas

Dimensions

overall: 60 × 100 cm (23 5/8 × 39 3/8 in.)

framed: 78.58 × 118.27 × 6.99 cm (30 15/16 × 46 9/16 × 2 3/4 in.)

Credit Line

Collection of Mr. and Mrs. Paul Mellon

Accession Number

1985.64.27

Artists / Makers

Claude Monet (artist) French, 1840 - 1926

Image Use

This image is in the public domain.
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Inscription

lower left: Claude Monet 82

Provenance

Purchased January 1883 from the artist by (Durand-Ruel, Paris). (Arthur Tooth & Sons, London) in 1939.[1] Lady John Hope; sold 1953 to Mr. Paul Mellon, Upperville, VA;[2] gift 1985 to NGA.

[1] According to Daniel Wildenstein, Claude Monet: Biographie et catalogue raisonné, Paris, 1974: II:no. 754.

[2] According to Paul Mellon records, in NGA curatorial files.

Associated Names

Durand-Ruel et Cie
Hope, John, Lady
Mellon, Paul
Tooth & Sons, Ltd., Arthur

Exhibition History

1910: Manet-Monet, Galerie Miethke, Vienna, 1910, no. 28.

1966: French Paintings from the Collections of Mr. and Mrs. Paul Mellon and Mrs. Mellon Bruce, National Gallery of Art, Washington, 1966, no. 88, repro

1967: French Paintings from the Collection of Mr. and Mrs. Paul Mellon, Virginia Museum of Fine Arts, Richmond, 1967, no cat.

1986: Gifts to the Nation: Selected Acquisitions from the Collections of Mr. and Mrs. Paul Mellon, National Gallery of Art, Washington, 1986, unnumbered checklist

2013: Impressionists at the Waterside: Depicting Urban Resorts: Paris, the Seine, and Normandy, Tokyo Fuji Art Museum; Fukuoka City Museum; The Museum of Kyoto, 2013-2014, no. 73, repro.

2014: Looking at Monet: The Great Impressionist and His Influence on Austrian Art, Lower Belvedere, Orangery, Vienna, 2014-2015, no. 28, repro., as On the Cliff at Dieppe, Cliffs at Dieppe, and Sur la falaise à Dieppe.

2015: Monet - Lost in Translation, ARoS Aarhus Kunstmuseum, Aarhus, Denmark, 2015-2016.

Bibliography

1974: Wildenstein, Daniel. Claude Monet. Biographie et catalogue raisonné. 5 vols. Lausanne and Paris, 1974-1991: 2:no. 754, as Sur la Falaise à Dieppe.