Claude Monet
, French, 1840-1926
Title
Argenteuil Basin with a Single SailboatDate1874
MediumOil on canvas
Dimensions
55 x 65 cm
Signedlower right: Claude Monet
Credit LineBequeathed, Edward Martyn, 1924
Object numberNGI.852
DescriptionDuring the 1870s Monet lived and worked in Argenteuil, a picturesque, developing industrial town on the outskirts of Paris. Impressionist friends such as Alfred Sisley, Pierre-Auguste Renoir and Gustave Caillebotte often visited and joined him in working en plein air. In 1872 Monet fitted out a boat as a floating studio; from it he painted numerous views of Argenteuil, the River Seine and its banks. By embedding himself in nature in this way, he could closely observe the fleeting effects of light and the changing seasons upon the landscape. This work was executed at a key moment in the artist’s career and the year in which the newly formed Société Anonyme des Artistes Peintres, Sculpteurs, Graveurs, etc. held its first exhibition in Paris. Monet conveys the scene with boldly applied strokes of complementary colour. An air of transience is suggested by motifs such as the shifting clouds, the rippled river surface, the blaze of orange leaves and the gliding form of the white-sailed yacht. Most of the composition is made up of intangible things - of sky and reflections.
March 2016
ProvenanceEdward Martyn in 1899; bequeathed, Edward Martyn, 1924 Exhibition HistoryLeinster Hall, Dublin, 1899
Royal Hibernian Academy, Dublin, 1904-1905
National College of Art, Dublin, 1944
Centenary Exhibition, National Gallery of Ireland, Dublin, October - December 1964
Claude Monet, Museo Español d'Arte Contemporaneo, Madrid, 29 April - 30 June 1986
Claude Monet, Salle St. George, Liège, 10 March - 10 May 1992; Stadhalle, Balingen, 18 June - 31 August 1992
French 19th and 20th-century Paintings from the National Gallery of Ireland: Corot to Picasso, Daimaru Museum, Tokyo, 5 September - 17 September 1996; Daimaru Museum, Kyoto, 10 October - 22 October 1996; Kawaguchiko Museum of Art, Yamanashi, 26 October - 2 December 1996; Daimaru Museum, Umeda,Osaka, 22 January - 9 February 1997; Aomori Municpal Gallery of Art, Aomori, 2 April - 20 April 1997
Regards et Vision, Musée Marmottan Monet, Paris, 15 October 2008 - 15 February 2009
Lines of Vision. Irish Writers at the National Gallery of Ireland, 8 October 2014 —12 April 2015