Cliff Walk at Pourville
Claude Monet (French, 1840–1926)1882
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Materials & printing
Archival matte paper, 189 g/m² (10.3 mil), sourced from Japan, printed with multicolor water-based inkjet so every brushstroke stays crisp. Framed prints arrive ready to hang in a .75″ ayous-wood frame with an acrylite front. Sized to standard frames by cropping, never stretching — at most about 3% comes off one edge, which isn’t noticeable on most pieces, and we only offer a size when it stays that small.
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About this work
In February 1882, Claude Monet went to Normandy to paint, one of many such expeditions that he made in the 1880s. This was also a retreat from personal and professional pressures. His wife, Camille, had died three years earlier, and Monet had entered into a domestic arrangement with Alice Hoschedé (whom he would marry in 1892, after her husband's death). France was in the midst of a lengthy economic recession that affected Monet's sales. In addition, the artist was unenthusiastic about the upcoming seventh Impressionist exhibition—divisions within the group had become pronounced by this time—and he delegated the responsibility for his contribution to his dealer, Paul Durand-Ruel.
Disappointed in the area around the harbor city of Dieppe, which he found too urban, Monet settled in Pourville and remained in this fishing village until mid-April. He became increasingly enamored of his surroundings, writing to Hoschedé and her children: "How beautiful the countryside is becoming, and what joy it would be for me to show you all its delightful nooks and crannies!" He was able to do so in June, when they joined him in Pourville.The two young women strolling in Cliff Walk at Pourville are probably Marthe and Blanche, the eldest Hoschedé daughters.
In this work, Monet addressed the problem of inserting figures into a landscape without disrupting the unity of its painterly surface. He integrated these elements with one another through texture and color. The grass—composed of short, brisk, curved brushstrokes—appears to quiver in the breeze, and subtly modified versions of the same strokes and hues suggest the women's wind-whipped dresses and shawls and the undulation of the sea. X-radiographs show that Monet reduced the rocky outcropping at the far right to balance the proportions of sea and sky.
- Medium
- Oil on canvas
- Original size
- 66.5 × 82.3 cm (26 1/8 × 32 7/16 in.)
Museum record · 2 owners · 24 exhibitions
Provenance
- Hayes, by Mar. 1, 1883.
- Hermann Kapferer, Paris, by July 17, 1888; sold to Durand-Ruel, Paris, July 17, 1888, for 1,200 francs; possibly sold to Annie Swan Coburn (d. 1932), Chicago, by Apr. 26, 1928; bequeathed to the Art Institute of Chicago, 1933.
Exhibitions
- Paris, Galeries Durand-Ruel, Exposition des oeuvres de Claude Monet, Mar. 1–25, 1883, as Promenade sur la Falaise.
- Appartenant à M. Hayes.
- London, Dowdeswell and Dowdeswell, Paintings, Drawings and Pastels by Members of “La Société des Impressionnistes,” Apr.–July 1883, as Promenade sur la falaise.
- Possibly Weimar, Permanenten Ausstellung für Kunst und Kunstgewerbe, c. June 1–c. Dec. 12, 1890, as Strand von Pourville.
- Brussels, Libre Esthétique, Exposition des peintres Impressionnistes, Feb. 25–Mar. 29, 1904, as Falaises de Dieppe.
- Appartient à M. Durand-Ruel.
- London, Grafton Galleries, Pictures by Boudin, Cézanne, Degas, Manet, Monet, Morisot, Pissarro, Renoir, Sisley Exhibited by Messrs. Durand-Ruel & Sons, of Paris, at the Grafton Galleries, 8 Grafton Street, London, Jan.–Feb. 1905, as The Walk on the Cliffs.
- Manchester City Art Gallery, Exhibition of Modern French Paintings, Winter 1907–08, as The Cliffs, Pourville (1882).
- Paris, Durand-Ruel, Exposition de paysages par Claude Monet et Renoir, May 18–June 6, 1908, as Promenade sur la falaise—1882.
- Paris, Galeries Durand-Ruel, Tableaux par Claude Monet, Mar. 2–28, 1914, as Promenade sur la falaise.
- Art Institute of Chicago, Exhibition of the Mrs. L. L. Coburn Collection: Modern Paintings and Watercolors, Apr. 6–Oct. 9, 1932.
- Art Institute of Chicago, “A Century of Progress”: Loan Exhibition of Paintings and Sculpture, May 23–Nov. 1, 1933.
- Art Institute of Chicago, “A Century of Progress”: Loan Exhibition of Paintings and Sculpture for 1934, June 1–Oct. 31, 1934.
- Art Institute of Chicago, The Paintings of Claude Monet, Apr. 1–June 15, 1957, no cat. Art Institute of Chicago, Paintings by Monet, Mar. 15–May 11, 1975.
- Albi, Musée Toulouse-Lautrec, Trésors impressionnistes du Musée de Chicago, June 27–Aug. 31, 1980.
- Los Angeles County Museum of Art, A Day in the Country: Impressionism and the French Landscape, June 28–Sept. 16, 1984; Art Institute of Chicago, Oct. 23, 1984–Jan. 6, 1985; Paris, Galeries Nationales d’Exposition du Grand Palais, as L’impressionnisme et le paysage français, Feb. 4–Apr. 22, 1985.
- Canberra, National Gallery of Australia, Monet and Japan, Mar. 9–June 11, 2001; Perth, Art Gallery of Western Australia, July 7–Sept. 16, 2001.
- Tokyo, Seiji Togo Memorial Yasuda Kasai Museum of Art, loan exchange, Oct. 12, 2001–June 12, 2002.
- Edinburgh, Royal Scottish Academy, Monet: The Seine and the Sea, 1878–1883, Aug. 6–Oct. 26, 2003.
- Art Institute of Chicago, Seurat and the Making of “La Grande Jatte,” June 19–Sept. 19, 2004.
- Fine Arts Museums of San Francisco, Monet in Normandy, June 17–Sept. 17, 2006; Raleigh, North Carolina Museum of Art, Oct. 15, 2006–Jan. 14, 2007; Cleveland Museum of Art, Feb. 18–May 20, 2007.
- Paris, Galeries Nationales du Grand Palais, Claude Monet, 1840–1926, Sept. 22, 2010–Jan. 24, 2011.
- Treviso, Museo di Santa Caterina, Storie dell'Impressionismo, October 29, 2016-April 17, 2017.
- Art Institute of Chicago, Monet and Chicago, September 5, 2020-June 14, 2021.
