Claude Monet Sells One of his Most Famous Paintings, The White Water Lilies, Now at the Pushkin Museum in Moscow
A rare letter of Monet relating directly to one of his most acclaimed works.
Claude Monet was the founder of French impressionist painting, and the most consistent and prolific practitioner of the movement’s philosophy of expressing one’s perceptions before nature. The term Impressionism is derived from the title of his painting Impression, Sunrise. He was also one of the Impressionists whose fervent minds moved to the...
Claude Monet was the founder of French impressionist painting, and the most consistent and prolific practitioner of the movement’s philosophy of expressing one’s perceptions before nature. The term Impressionism is derived from the title of his painting Impression, Sunrise. He was also one of the Impressionists whose fervent minds moved to the early 20th century movement, Fauvism. This style, while still focusing on natural subjects, used strong colors and bold brush strokes to elicit emotion.
In 1899, Monet first turned to the subject of water lilies with his painting The White Water Lilies. At that time he was growing white water lilies in the water garden he had installed on his property at Giverny. The garden, and its pond in particular, became the artist’s great source of inspiration. He said: “I have come back to things that are impossible to do: water with weeds waving in the depths. Apart from painting and gardening, I am good for nothing. My greatest masterpiece is my garden.” These works have become among his most recognizable ones, and The White Lilies painting was the first, and along with its close version at the Musee d’Orsay, the most famous.
The White Water Lilies in 1900 was acquired by Sergei Shchukin, a Russian businessman who, like Alfred Barnes in the United States, became an art collector, mainly of French Impressionist and Post-Impressionist art. He bought his first Monet in 1897. In time there were 258 paintings decorating the walls of his palatial home in Moscow. By 1914, Shchukin owned thirteen Monets, including The White Water Lilies (one of his first purchases), eight Cézannes, four Van Goghs, and sixteen Gauguins. Les Nympheas Blancs, as it is called in French, is at the Pushkin Museum in Moscow, the largest such institution in Russia.
In late 1900, with the money from Shchukin received, Monet sent along the sums to his agent, Lucien Moline, the well known French art dealer and agent who helped Monet, along with several of his contemporaries, sell their paintings.
Autograph letter signed, December 9, 1900, Giverny, to Moline. “Included I send you a bank note for 1000 francs, which comes to you from the Chtchoukine [Shchukin] transaction. Kindly acknowledge receiving it.”
A rare letter of Monet relating directly to one of his most acclaimed works.
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