In 1878, Claude Monet moved with his family from Argenteuil to the small town of Vétheuil, farther down the Seine, and farther away from Paris, to seek cheaper lodgings. At the time, he was faced with mounting debts, a chronic problem during his early career. Generous loans from colleagues soon ran out. Buyers were scarce, and his wife was dying. “I don’t have the strength to work anymore under these conditions,” he declared. Yet he continued painting Vétheuil, from different vantage points at different times of the year. He painted this chilly scene later that winter.
Devoted to painting en plein air, Monet constructed a floating studio—a flat-bottomed boat with just enough room for his easel—from which he may have painted this scene of the ice-clogged river and the town of Vétheuil, with its medieval church tower, on the far shore. It was one of the harshest winters recorded to date. How cold he must have been, exposed to the elements, each dab of paint applied as if with a shiver.
Vétheuil in Winter
In 1878 Monet moved down the Seine from Argenteuil to Vétheuil, a small town on a bend in the river. Over the next few years he would paint Vétheuil from different points of view and in every season, as seen from the riverbanks, from the meadows, and from a boat he had arranged as a kind of floating studio. It was during the winter of 1878/79 that Monet executed this picture, looking back across the ice floes of the Seine toward Vétheuil’s medieval church tower. On December 12, 1879, Dr. de Bellio, an avid collector of Monet’s work, wrote to the artist that this was one canvas that would never leave his possession.
Source: Art in The Frick Collection: Paintings, Sculpture, Decorative Arts, New York: Harry N. Abrams, 1996.
Emile Staub-Terlinden, Männedorf, Switzerland. In the late 1930's consigned to Wildenstein by Staub-Terlinden's widow. Wildenstein. Frick, 1942. [From Getty Provenance: By 1913 (?), still in 1938 (?), Emile Staub-Terlinden, Männedorf, Switzerland.]
Source: Paintings in The Frick Collection: French, Italian and Spanish. Volume II. New York: The Frick Collection, 1968.
