The Beach at Sainte-Adresse
Claude Monet (French, 1840–1926)1867
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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 the summer of 1867, Claude Monet stayed with his aunt at Sainte-Adresse, an affluent suburb of the port city Le Havre in northern France. The artist was familiar with the landscape, having grown up in the area, but the region changed significantly during his lifetime. The expansion of the country’s rail network turned this small, rural fishing village into a seaside resort for tourists. Here, Monet hinted at this transformation. The viewer is immediately drawn to the visible aspects of local life—dark-sailed fishing boats drift in the water, with groups of fishermen, their equipment, and other craft on the shore. The beached boats frame two figures sitting on the shoreline, highlighted by a few strokes of red and yellow paint: a man in a dark hat and suit looks through a telescope, accompanied by a woman wearing a straw hat with a scarlet ribbon. The presence of this couple—undoubtedly vacationers, given their fashionable attire—changes what might have been a traditional coastal scene into a painting of modern life, one of the artist’s first explorations of tourism.
Monet began this painting outdoors and revised it later in his studio. Conservation research has revealed that he changed his mind about the composition while he worked: he initially included other tourist figures and yachts in the scene but later painted over these details, shifting his focus to the fishermen, the aspect of life in Sainte-Adresse that he knew best.
Monet’s seascapes from this summer are markedly different from those painted only a few years earlier, and Beach at Sainte-Adresse exemplifies his evolving painting technique. It also foreshadows some of the qualities that became characteristic of the Impressionist movement, which is perhaps why Monet chose to show it at the second Impressionist exhibition in 1876, nearly ten years after he painted it.
- Medium
- Oil on canvas
- Original size
- 75.8 × 102.5 cm (29 13/16 × 40 5/16 in.)
Museum record · 1 owner · 28 exhibitions
Provenance
- The artist (d. 1926); sold to Durand-Ruel, Paris, Feb. 28, 1873, for 400 francs; probably sold to Jean-Baptiste Faure, Paris, by 1876; sold to Durand-Ruel, Paris, Jan. 9, 1893, for 7,000 francs; sold to Henri Véver, Paris, Jan. 17, 1893, for 8,000 francs; sold Henri Véver, Paris, sale, Galerie Georges Petit, Paris, Feb. 1–2, 1897, lot 79, to Boulley, as the agent for Georges Kohn, Paris, for 9,000 francs; sold jointly to Durand-Ruel, Paris, and Bernheim-Jeune, Paris, June 11, 1920, for 40,000 francs; sold to Annie Swan Coburn, Chicago (d. 1932), Feb. 8, 1923 Bequeathed to the Art Institute of Chicago, 1933.
Exhibitions
- Possibly London, Durand-Ruel, Eighth Exhibition of the Society of French Artists, spring 1874, as Ste Adresse near Havre.
- Paris, 11, rue Le Peletier, 2e exposition de peinture, Apr. 1876, as La Plage à Sainte-Adresse.
- Appartient à M. Faure.
- Paris, Galerie Georges Petit, Claude Monet—A. Rodin, June 21–Sept. 21, 1889, as Sainte-Adresse.
- 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.
- City Art Museum of St. Louis, Paintings by French Impressionists (1860–1880), Apr. 17–May 16, 1934, no cat. Art Institute of Chicago, “A Century of Progress”: Loan Exhibition of Paintings and Sculpture for 1934, June 1–Oct. 31, 1934.
- Toledo (Ohio) Museum of Art, French Impressionists and Post-Impressionists, Nov. 1934 (paintings).
- Kansas City, Mo., William Rockhill Nelson Gallery of Art and Mary Atkins Museum of Fine Arts, French Impressionist Landscape Painting, Nov. 29–Dec. 30, 1936 (cover ill.).
- Art Institute of Chicago, Masterpiece of the Month, June 30–July 31, 1945, no cat. Kunsthaus Zürich, Claude Monet: 1840–1926, May 10–June 15, 1952; Paris, Galerie Beaux-Arts, June 19–July 17, 1952; The Hague, Gemeentemuseum, July 24–Sept. 22, 1952.
- Art Institute of Chicago, The Paintings of Claude Monet, Apr. 1–June 15, 1957, no cat. Art Museum of St. Louis, Claude Monet: A Loan Exhibition, Sept. 25–Oct. 22, 1957; Minneapolis Institute of Arts, Nov. 1–Dec. 1, 1957.
- San Francisco, California Palace of the Legion of Honor, Painters by the Sea, July 1–30, 1961, no cat.; Santa Barbara (Calif.) Museum of Art, Aug. 8–Sept. 3, 1961.
- Art Institute of Chicago, Paintings by Monet, Mar. 15–May 11, 1975.
- Northampton, Mass., Smith College Museum of Art, Jongkind and the Pre-Impressionists: Painters of the Ecole Saint-Siméon, Oct. 15–Dec. 5, 1976; Williamstown, Mass., Sterling and Francine Clark Art Institute, Dec. 17, 1976–Feb. 13, 1977.
- Paris, Galeries Nationales du Grand Palais, Hommage à Claude Monet (1840–1926), Feb. 8–May 5, 1980 bis.
- 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.
- Washington, D.C., National Gallery of Art, The New Painting: Impressionism, 1874–1886, Jan. 17–Apr. 6, 1986; Fine Arts Museums of San Francisco/M. H. de Young Memorial Museum, Apr. 19–July 6, 1986.
- Leningrad, Hermitage Museum, Ot Delakrua do Matissa: shedevry frantsuzskoĭ zhivopici XIX-nachala XX veka, iz Muieia Metropoliten v Niu-Ĭorke i Khudozhestvennogo Instituta v Chikago, March 15-May 19, 1988; Moscow, Pushkin Museum, June 10-July 30, 1988.
- Paris, Galeries Nationales du Grand Palais, Impressionnisme: Les origines, 1859–1869, April 19–August 8, 1994; New York, Metropolitan Museum of Art, Origins of Impressionism, September 27, 1994–January 8, 1995.
- Art Institute of Chicago, Claude Monet, 1840–1926, July 22–Nov. 26, 1995.
- Art Institute of Chicago, Manet and the Sea, Oct. 20, 2003–Jan. 19, 2004; Philadelphia Museum of Art, Feb. 15–May 30, 2004; Amsterdam, Van Gogh Museum, June 18–Sept. 26, 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 (Cleveland only).
- London, Royal Academy of Arts, Impressionists by the Sea, July 7–Sept. 30, 2007; Washington, D.C., Phillips Collection, Oct. 20, 2007–Jan. 13, 2008; Hartford, Conn., Wadsworth Atheneum Museum of Art, Feb. 9–May 11, 2008.
- Paris, Galeries Nationales du Grand Palais, Claude Monet, 1840–1926, Sept. 22, 2010–Jan. 24, 2011.
- Museo Nacional Thyssen-Bornemisza, Monet/ Boudin, exh. cat. (Fundación Colección Thyssen-Bornemisza, 2018), 130-131, 269.
- Art Institute of Chicago, Monet and Chicago, September 5, 2020-June 14, 2021.
- Cologne, Wallraf-Richartz-Museum & Foundation Corbound, A Revolution in Art: Paris 1863-1875, From Salon to Impressionism, Mar. 15–July 28, 2024.
