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Garden of the Princess, Louvre

Artist/Maker (French, 1840–1926)
Date1867
MediumOil on canvas
DimensionsOverall: 36 1/8 × 24 3/8 in. (91.8 × 61.9 cm)
Frame: 45 5/8 × 34 1/8 × 4 9/16 in. (115.9 × 86.7 × 11.6 cm)
Credit LineR. T. Miller Jr. Fund
Object number1948.296
Status
Not on view
Copyright© Allen Memorial Art Museum, Oberlin College, Oberlin, OHMore Information
Claude Monet, one of the founders of Impressionism (which takes its name from his 1872 painting Impression, Sunrise), grew up on the Normandy coast, known for its rapidly changing skies. Sunlight, clouds, and the mutability of the weather were to dominate Monet's works. Known for paintings created en plein air, or outdoors, Monet worked throughout his life in Normandy, in and around Paris, and in the south of France, as well as in London, Holland, and Venice. In the 1880s, he began to spend time at Giverny, near Paris, where he created many works celebrating his water-lily pond.

Oberlin's painting, along with two other horizontal works in The Hague and Berlin, was painted by Monet in spring 1867, from windows at the Louvre. On April 27, the artist had asked for a special authorization to paint "views of Paris from the windows of the Louvre," and on May 20, he wrote the artist Frédéric Bazille that he and Renoir were still busy on their city views. His earliest images of Paris, they were painted shortly after the opening of the city's World's Fair in April and attest to its importance as a growing metropolis. Rather than copy the masterpieces inside the museum, as had generations of artists before him, Monet turned the opposite direction, toward the city itself. The work is evidence of his diverse and inspired early period, presenting a sweeping view of Paris in an unusual vertical composition that shows a slice of the city toward the southeast, through atmospheric clouds; the oblique viewpoint may have been inspired by Japanese prints the artist would have seen at the World's Fair.

The dome of the Pantheon appears in the center distance, flanked by the church of St. Etienne-du-Mont and the dome of the Sorbonne. The Ile de la Cité is in the middle ground, separated from the Right Bank by the Seine, of which a small part is visible at right, under the French flag. The foreground, painted in brilliant green, shows the Garden of the Princess (Jardin de l'Infante), named for a Spanish princess who was briefly engaged to Louis XV in 1722, and whose apartments under the Galerie d'Apollon looked out over the garden. Human figures-so prominent in Monet's works to this point-are reduced to daubs of paint, signifying their movement on foot and in horse-drawn carriages through the transitional spaces of the grand boulevards flanking the Louvre and Seine.

The painting was purchased from the artist by pianist Charles Wilfried de Beriot around 1873; in a later letter, in which Beriot asked Monet for an updated value for the work, the musician noted that he felt that Monet had a soft spot (un faible) for it, as Monet had valued it at double all his other paintings (1000 francs), at the time of Beriot's purchase.
Exhibition History
Art Francais Contemporain
  • Chateau de Rohan, Strasbourg, France (March 2, 1907 - April 2, 1907 )
Franzisiche Kunstwerke
  • Museum der Bildenden Kunste, Stuttgart (May 1, 1907 - May 31, 1907 )
Claude Monet
  • Kunsthaus, Zurich (May 10, 1952 - June 1, 1952 )
Claude Monet
  • Galerie des Beaux-Arts, Paris (June 19, 1952 - July 17, 1952 )
Claude Monet
  • Kunstmuseum Den Haag, The Netherlands (June 24, 1952 - September 22, 1952 )
Paintings and Drawings from Five Centuries: Collection Allen Memorial Art Museum
  • M. Knoedler & Co., Inc., New York (February 3, 1954 - February 21, 1954 )
Two Sides of the Medal: French Painting from Gerome to Gauguin
  • Detroit Institute of Arts, Detroit, MI (September 28, 1954 - November 6, 1954 )
Claude Monet
  • St. Louis Art Museum, St. Louis, MO (September 25, 1957 - October 22, 1957 )
  • Minneapolis Institute of Arts, Minneapolis, MN (November 1, 1957 - December 1, 1957 )
Paintings by Claude Monet
  • Society of the Four Arts, Palm Beach, FL (January 3, 1958 - February 2, 1958 )
An American University Collection: Works of Art from the Allen Memorial Art Museum, Oberlin, Ohio
  • Kenwood House, London (May 3, 1962 - October 30, 1962 )
Neighboring Museum Series
  • Akron Art Institute, Akron, OH (October 4, 1964 - November 1, 1964 )
Treasures from the Allen Memorial Art Museum
  • Minneapolis Institute of Arts, Minneapolis, MN (July 21, 1966 - September 11, 1966 )
From El Greco to Pollock: Early and Late Works by European and American Artists
  • Baltimore Museum of Art, Baltimore, MD (October 22, 1968 - December 8, 1968 )
One Hundred Years of Impressionism
  • Wildenstein & Company, New York (April 2, 1970 - May 9, 1970 )
Impressionism: 100 Years
  • Allen Memorial Art Museum, Oberlin, OH (December 14, 1974 - January 19, 1975 )
Paintings by Monet
  • The Art Institute of Chicago, Chicago, IL (March 15, 1975 - May 11, 1975 )
The Second Empire, 1852-1870: Art in France Under Napoleon III
  • Philadelphia Museum of Art, Philadelphia, PA (October 1, 1978 - November 26, 1978 )
  • Detroit Institute of Arts, Detroit, MI (January 15, 1979 - March 18, 1979 )
  • Réunion des museés nationaux - Grand Palais, Paris (April 24, 1979 - July 2, 1979 )
Modern Masters from the Permanent Collection
  • Allen Memorial Art Museum, Oberlin, OH (December 8, 1985 - March 23, 1986 )
Landscapes from the Permanent Collection
  • Allen Memorial Art Museum, Oberlin, OH (April 10, 1986 - May 16, 1986 )
Director's Choice: 19th Century European Paintings and Sculpture
  • Allen Memorial Art Museum, Oberlin, OH (November 9, 1986 - January 4, 1987 )
From Turner to Picasso: Masterworks from the Collection
  • Allen Memorial Art Museum, Oberlin, OH (May 27, 1988 - September 18, 1988 )
Selections from the Permanent Collection: Landscape
  • Allen Memorial Art Museum, Oberlin, OH (June 15, 1993 - August 19, 1993 )
Focus on the Permanent Exhibition: Audrey Flack
  • Allen Memorial Art Museum, Oberlin, OH (November 20, 1993 - March 20, 1994 )
Les Origines de L'Impressionisme
  • Réunion des museés nationaux - Grand Palais, Paris (March 29, 1994 - July 25, 1994 )
  • The Metropolitan Museum of Art, New York (September 19, 1994 - January 8, 1995 )
Claude Monet:1840-1926
  • The Art Institute of Chicago, Chicago, IL (July 14, 1995 - November 26, 1995 )
Short-term Loan to Cleveland Museum of Art
  • Cleveland Museum of Art, Cleveland, OH (June 3, 1998 - August 17, 1998 )
Monet and Japan
  • National Gallery of Australia, Canberra (March 9, 2001 - June 11, 2001 )
  • Art Gallery of Western Australia, Perth (July 6, 2001 - September 16, 2001 )
Collecting the Vanguard: Art from 1900 to 1970
  • Allen Memorial Art Museum, Oberlin, OH (August 17, 2001 - June 2, 2002 )
Figure to Non-Figurative: The Evolution of Modern Art in Europe and North America, 1830-1950
  • Allen Memorial Art Museum, Oberlin, OH (August 23, 2002 - June 9, 2003 )
Claude Monet (1840-1926): A Tribute to Daniel Wildenstein and Katia Granoff
  • Wildenstein & Company, New York (April 27, 2007 - June 15, 2007 )
The Modern Landscape
  • Allen Memorial Art Museum, Oberlin, OH (September 4, 2007 - June 29, 2008 )
Side by Side: Oberlin's Masterworks
  • The Metropolitan Museum of Art, New York (March 16, 2010 - August 29, 2010 )
  • The Phillips Collection, Washington, DC (September 11, 2010 - January 16, 2011 )
Painting the Modern Garden: Monet to Matisse
  • Cleveland Museum of Art, Cleveland, OH (October 11, 2015 - January 3, 2016 )
  • Royal Academy of Arts, London (January 23, 2016 - April 10, 2016 )
Monet: The Early Years
  • Kimbell Art Museum, Fort Worth, TX (October 16, 2016 - January 29, 2017 )
  • California Palace of the Legion of Honor, San Francisco, CA (February 25, 2017 - May 29, 2017 )
Monet and the Impressionist Cityscape
  • Nationalgalerie / Staatliche Museen zu Berlin, Germany (September 27, 2024 - January 26, 2025 )
Collections
  • European