On the Bank of the Seine, Bennecourt
by Claude Monet
Camille Doncieux on an island in the Seine, painted in 1868 during a few poor months at Gloton that Émile Zola had recommended to Monet as somewhere cheap to live within reach of Paris. It is the only canvas known to survive from that stay.
- 1868
- Oil on canvas
About Claude Monet
A woman, a river, a village opposite
Camille sits on the bank of an island in the Seine with her back to us, in a striped dress, looking across the water toward the hamlet of Gloton. A rowing boat is drawn up at the left — presumably how the two of them got there. The far bank carries pale houses and a screen of trees, and the whole of it comes back at us again, upside down and broken, in the reflection that occupies the bottom third of the canvas.
The reflection is the radical part. It is painted in flat, loaded, separate strokes that do not describe anything so much as register colour and movement, and at close range they stop being houses and trees at all. To a viewer in 1868, trained on smooth finish, this would have read as unfinished rather than as bold.
Zola's cheap village
Monet was in his late twenties, not yet known, and short of money. The novelist Émile Zola — a friend from the Paris circle around Manet — pointed him toward Gloton, next to Bennecourt, as a rural retreat he could afford and could still get to and from Paris easily.
The stay was brief and produced, so far as survives, this one painting. Technical examination has found pentimenti beneath the surface: in an earlier state Camille held a child in a bonnet, almost certainly the couple's baby son Jean. Monet painted him out.
From 500 francs to Chicago
The painting belonged to the collector Louis Aimé Léon Clapisson, who by 1889 valued it at 500 francs. Durand-Ruel bought it in April 1892 for 1,500 francs and sold it a month later, on 18 May 1892, to the Chicago retailer Potter Palmer for 7,500 francs — the tripling in four weeks a fair picture of what was happening to Impressionist prices in the 1890s. It descended in the Palmer family and was given to the Art Institute of Chicago in 1922.
Close reading
Reading the work, detail by detail
This early river painting holds a figure, a village, and their reflection in a single quiet surface. The close views reveal how little Monet separates person, foliage, and water.
1.Camille is present but not posed
Her pale dress catches the light, but her face is withheld and her body turns toward the river. She is the nearest figure and not the picture's social center. Monet uses her to set the scale of the bank and the privacy of the looking.
2.The opposite bank exists twice
White walls and dark trees above the water return as softened vertical bands below it. The reflection is not a mirror copy; current and broken brushwork loosen the architecture into color.
3.Near foliage becomes a screen
The brightest leaves sit close to the picture plane and partly obstruct the view. Their sharp yellows and greens make the distant bank seem cooler and farther away. Depth comes from color temperature as much as perspective.
Timeline
1868
Monet and Camille Doncieux stay at Gloton, near Bennecourt, on Zola's recommendation; he paints this canvas.
1892
Durand-Ruel buys it in April for 1,500 francs and sells it to Potter Palmer on 18 May for 7,500 francs.
1922
Given to the Art Institute of Chicago by the Palmer family.
Frequently asked questions
Who is the woman in the painting?
Camille Doncieux, Monet's companion and later his first wife. She was the model for many of his figure paintings of the 1860s and 1870s.
What is the connection to Émile Zola?
Zola recommended Gloton to Monet as a cheap country base within easy reach of Paris. The two men knew each other through the Paris circle around Édouard Manet.
Was there originally a child in the picture?
Yes. Pentimenti — traces of earlier paint layers — show that Camille first held a bonneted child, presumably the couple's son Jean, whom Monet later painted out.
Where is the painting now?
At the Art Institute of Chicago, in the Potter Palmer Collection (accession number 1922.427).
