Vue du village de Giverny by Claude Monet

Claude Monet
1840-1926 | French

Vue du village de Giverny

Signed and dated “Claude Monet 86” (lower left)
Oil on canvas

Claude Monet, one of the most revered artists in history, was a masterful observer of nature and a pioneer in capturing the transformative power of light and landscape. This astonishing painting, Vue du village de Giverny, is an iconic example of the master at his most expressive. Here, you can see his profound fascination with perspective, movement and nature, using these elements to compose a landscape of unparalleled beauty.

In 1886, as Claude Monet set his easel atop the hills of Giverny, his once-unified group of artists was facing a dramatic rift at the Eighth Impressionist Exhibition. Camille Pissarro, captivated by the emerging divisionist techniques of Georges Seurat and Paul Signac, championed their inclusion in the show. The Divisionists’ bold, calculated brushwork stood in stark defiance of Impressionism’s fleeting visions. Monet, alongside Renoir, Sisley and Caillebotte, refused to participate, marking the final chapter of the Impressionist collective.

Amid this upheaval, Monet stood firm. “I am still an Impressionist and will always remain one,” he proclaimed. Yet, in Vue du village de Giverny, a subtle transformation is evident. Here, Monet remains devoted to atmosphere and light but also embraces a structured, almost abstract interpretation of his beloved landscape. The landscape, a hillside just northeast of Giverny, a short walk from the home he shared with Alice Hoschedé and their eight children, is presented in interlocking forms. The rooftops and treetops coalesce into rhythmic patterns of color and texture and the foreground bursts with the clustered rooftops of the Ferme de la Côte, owned by the proprietors of the nearby Hôtel Baudy—a favored haunt of American artists drawn to Giverny’s pastoral charm. In the distance, the soft blue silhouettes of the Bennecourt hills stretch across the horizon, punctuated by the meandering Seine.

Monet knew this land intimately. He often wandered the countryside, canvases tucked under his arm, as he traced the paths of winding streams and fields. Months before completing Vue du village de Giverny, Monet had painted the same hillside under snow. By summer, his perspective shifted. He climbed higher, tilting his gaze downward, transforming the rooftops into intersecting lines and flickering reds and pinks. The landscape beyond dissolved into horizontal bands—fields, forests and distant hills rendered in cool tones that hum beneath a lavender sky.

Quintessentially Monet, this composition stands among the artist’s finest achievements. Remarkably, this painting surpasses 80% of Monet's works from this prolific period in scale. Comparable works from the same era—including Woman with a Parasol at the Musée d’Orsay and Meadow in the Sun at Giverny at the Museum of Fine Arts, Boston—are celebrated as iconic masterpieces and remain highly coveted by collectors and institutions alike.

Canvas: 24 3/4” high x 32 1/4” wide (62.87 x 79.38 cm)
Framed: 35 1/2” high x 41 7/8” wide x 5 3/4" deep (90.17 x 106.36 x 14.61 cm)

View the Dossier

Provenance:
Ernst and Gertrud Flersheim, Frankfurt-am-Main, by circa 1913
Edith and Georg Eberstadt, Frankfurt-am-Main & London, by descent from the above by 1936, by whom sold in the 1930s
Alexandre Farra, Paris; Estate sale, Palais Galliera, Paris, 9 March 1961, lot C
Elizabeth Stafford, New York & New Orleans, by whom acquired at the above sale; sold under a settlement agreement with the heirs of Ernst Flersheim, Christie’s, New York, 11 November 2018, lot 38A
Private Collection, acquired from the above sale
M.S. Rau, New Orleans

Exhibited:
Frankfurter Kunstschütze, July – September 1913, no. 61, p. 16 (illustrated; titled ‘Die Dächer’)
New Orleans, Isaac Delgado Museum of Art, Odyssey of an Art Collector: Unity in Diversity, Five-Thousand Years of Art, November 1966 – January 1967, p. 174, no. 182 (illustrated p. 112)
New Orleans, Museum of Art, 1977 – March 2018 (on long-term loan)
Orléans, Musée des Beaux-Arts, Peintures françaises du Museum of Art de la Nouvelle-Orléans, May – September 1984, no. 23, pp. 60-61 (illustrated p. 61)
New Orleans, The New Orleans Museum of Art, 1991, French Paintings of Three Centuries from the New Orleans Museum of Art, no. 28, p. 70 (illustrated p. 71; titled Rooftops, Giverny); this exhibition later traveled to Memphis, The Dixon Gallery and Gardens, January – March 1992; Miami, Centre for the Fine Arts, March – May 1992; Wilmington, Delaware Art Museum, May – June 1992; Grosse Pointe Shores, Edsel and Eleanor Ford House, July – September 1992; Oklahoma, City Art Museum, October – November 1992; and Seattle, Art Museum, December 1992 – February 1993
Fukushima, Koriyama City Museum of Art, French Art of Four Centuries from the New Orleans Museum of Art, February – March 1993, no. 22, p. 56 (illustrated; titled ‘Rooftops, Giverny’); this exhibition later traveled to Yokohama, Sogo Museum of Art, April – May 1993, Yokohama, Nara Sogo Museum of Art, June – July 1993; and Kitakyushu, Municipal Museum of Art, July – August 1993
  Munich, Kunsthalle der Hypo-Kulturstiftung, Monet and Modernism, November 2001 – March 2002, p. 67 (illustrated); this exhibition later traveled to Basel, Fondation Beyeler, Claude Monet, up to digital Impressionism, March-August 2002
San Francisco, Fine Arts Museum, Monet in Normandy, June – September 2007, no. 37, pp. 122-123 (illustrated p. 123); this exhibition later traveled to Raleigh, North Carolina Museum of Art, October 2006 – January 2007; and Cleveland, Museum of Modern Art, February – May 2007

Literature:
D. Wildenstein, Claude Monet: Biographie et catalogue raisonné, vol. II, Lausanne, 1979, no. 1072, p. 192 (illustrated p. 193)
D. Wildenstein, Claude Monet: Biographie et catalogue raisonné, supplément aux peintures, dessins, pastels, vol. V, Lausanne, 1991, no. 1072, p. 44
D. Wildenstein, Monet: Catalogue raisonné, vol. II, Cologne, 1996, no. 1072, pp. 405-406 (illustrated p. 406)
W.A. Eberstadt, Whence We Came, Where We Went: A Family History, New York, 2002, p. 129
A. Goetz, A Day With Claude Monet in Giverny, Paris, 2017, pp. 26-27 (illustrated)