Description
Banks of the Seine, Vétheuil is a hand-painted reproduction of Monet’s canvas in the National Gallery of Art, Washington: the lower half is a dense band of wild flowers in white and yellow, behind it the blue river runs the full width, and on the far bank stand poplars and low scrub under a moving grey-blue sky. The original measures 100.5 x 73.4 cm, is oil on canvas and carries accession number 1963.10.177. The museum dates it 1880 and records a signature at the lower right, in red. We paint it in eight sizes or to your own, with a photograph of the finished work sent for approval before dispatch.
| Title: | Banks of the Seine, Vétheuil |
| Other titles: | Au Bord de la Seine, près de Vétheuil is the French name in Wikidata; the museum gives the title exactly as we do; in the Wildenstein catalogue the work is number 597 |
| Painter: | Claude Monet (1840–1926) |
| Year painted: | 1880 per the museum record, without reservation; the museum records the signature at the lower right, in red, »Claude Monet 80«, so the two years agree |
| Original size: | 100.5 cm x 73.4 cm |
| Original technique: | Oil on canvas |
| Painting style: | Impressionism |
| Located at: | National Gallery of Art, Washington (inv. 1963.10.177) |
| Our reproduction: | Hand-painted oil on canvas, eight sizes or made to measure |
Banks of the Seine, Vétheuil – Claude Monet
What is on the canvas?
The lower half is a band of flowers along the water, and that band is the main part of the work. It is made of short vertical strokes in moss, laurel and pine green, with white and lemon-yellow blooms scattered over it, singly and in clumps. No stroke is blended into its neighbour; only at a few paces do they assemble into grass and flowers.
Above that band the river runs the full width of the canvas, painted in horizontal strokes of blue. On the far bank stands a row of tall narrow poplars — the tree to which the painter later gave whole canvases, among them Poplars — with lower scrub between them and a green embankment, all of it narrower and darker than the foreground.
The upper third is sky, in blended strokes of slate blue and cream white. It is paler to the right, as though the sun were breaking through the cloud. The horizon lies about two thirds of the way up.
What is written on the canvas?
The museum records a signature at the lower right, in red: »Claude Monet 80«. This is one of the rare cases in our collection where the year on the canvas and the year of the institution agree: the museum dates the work 1880, and the signature carries the last two figures of that year, 80.
The red is unusual in itself. The painter signed mostly in dark olive or blue; here he chose the colour that shows best in the lower right corner, in the middle of the green.
What does the museum record say about the work?
The work is held by the National Gallery of Art in Washington under accession number 1963.10.177. It publishes the measurements height first, 73.4 and 100.5 cm; our table puts the width first, so here you read 100.5 x 73.4 cm. With the frame it gives 127.6 x 100.3 x 9.5 cm, the credit line reads Chester Dale Collection, and the work hangs in Gallery 80 on the main floor of the West Building.
In Daniel Wildenstein’s catalogue raisonné it carries number 597.
Whose hands has the canvas passed through?
The museum publishes the whole chain and we give it as it gives it. The painter sold the canvas to James F. Sutton of New York, who died in 1915; by inheritance it passed to his wife. At the Sutton sale, at the American Art Association in New York on 26 October 1933, it went as number 48 and was bought by Chester Dale, who lived from 1882 to 1962. In 1963 he left it to the museum by bequest.
At least three canvases we sell were sold that day. Besides this one they were The Seine at Giverny as number 72 and Rouen Cathedral, Portal as number 58; all three ended with Dale and in the same 1963 bequest. That is not an inference but the sum of three museum records.
What else hangs in Gallery 80?
The museum also publishes where the work hangs, and in the same room it holds The Seine at Giverny, which we sell too, of 1897 and measuring 100.5 x 81.5 cm. Seventeen years separate them, and both arrived with the same bequest.
Set side by side they show what changed. Here the foreground is full of separate strokes and recognisable blooms; in the other there is neither figure nor building, only the mass of the trees and its reflection. The same river, seventeen years, two ways of painting it.
Which of our Vétheuil canvases is which?
Vétheuil is a village on the Seine where the painter moved and where several works we sell were made. This canvas is the summer one, with the bank in flower; the second is the winter one, Snow Effect in Vétheuil, where the same bank lies under snow.
Go by the accession number and not by the place: under the name Vétheuil this painter has several dozen works whose titles differ only slightly.
Why does this work matter?
Because of the lower half. The band of flowers is made of short strokes set side by side and blended nowhere; close up a surface of colour, at a few paces grass, scrub and flowers. That is not haste but a decision: the painter left the procedure visible. An impressionist painting of this kind shows how it was made.
Twelve years earlier the same painter still put a woman, a boat and a village on the bank in On the Banks of the Seine, Bennecourt. Here there is none of that; only the bank is left. Seventeen years later, at Giverny, that will go too.
The third thing is proportion. The flowers take about half the canvas, which is a great deal for a landscape; the horizon is pushed high and the sky is only a band. A Monet reproduction of this kind therefore depends on whether the foreground stays busy, and not on detail in the distance.
How is our hand-painted version made?
Every order is painted individually by an artist, in oil on cotton or linen. That is how every canvas painting leaves us, with no print and no machine step. This oil painting reproduction is demanding in the foreground: the strokes must stay separate and of differing length, or the band of flowers becomes one even green surface.
The second test is the sky. The blended strokes of slate blue and cream white must stay soft, or a hard band appears above a sharp foreground. Work of this kind will not take a high gloss, so ours is matt. A hand-painted copy is not a facsimile; two canvases of the same size always differ in the brushwork.
Which size for which wall?
There are eight sizes, from 50 x 40 to 150 x 110 cm, and here the answers part company. By size the closest is 100 x 80 cm, only half a centimetre narrower — but by proportion it is the worst of the eight, at 1.2500 against the original’s 1.3692.
By proportion the closest is the largest size, 150 x 110 cm at 1.3636. If you want the size, take 100 x 80; if you want the shape, 150 x 110. A single right answer would be easier to write and would not be true. For a quiet wall 120 x 90 works as well. All sizes are listed in our Claude Monet gallery, where a painting for the living room of this kind sits well with wood and textile.
How high to hang the painting: centre about 150 cm above the floor, so the surface of the river falls at eye level.
Custom size, stretcher bar and frame
For a size not on the list, made to measure is the only route; send us the width and height and we keep the proportion. The canvas is stretched on a wooden bar. A frame is not included; the museum’s own measures 127.6 x 100.3 cm and is 9.5 cm deep.
Delivery and guarantee
Making it takes two to three weeks, a few days more at the largest sizes. It arrives stretched on its bar in a rigid box, or rolled in a tube, with tracking. If it arrives damaged or differs noticeably from the approved photograph, we replace it or refund. Small differences in the brushwork are expected in handwork; damage is not.
If the painting is a gift and you are unsure of the size, there is a voucher: the recipient chooses the size and the subject.
Frequently asked questions
Where is the original?
In Washington, at the National Gallery of Art, accession 1963.10.177, Gallery 80.
Who or what does it show?
Nobody. The bank of the Seine at Vétheuil with a band of wild flowers, the river, and poplars opposite.
What is this work about, in one sentence?
About a river bank that is colour close up and flowers only at a distance.
When did Monet live in Vétheuil?
From 1878 to 1881. He rented a house in the village on the Seine, not far from Paris, and painted Vétheuil and its surroundings many times; it was there that Camille died in 1879.
- Subject. The bank of the Seine at Vétheuil: the lower half a band of wild flowers in white and yellow, the blue river behind it, poplars on the far bank under a grey-blue sky.
- Original. Oil on canvas, 100.5 x 73.4 cm, 1880; the museum records a signature at the lower right in red, Claude Monet 80; National Gallery of Art, Washington, inv. 1963.10.177.
- Ours. Eight sizes; 100 x 80 cm is closest by size, 150 x 110 cm by proportion, and those are not the same size.
- Worth knowing. The canvas sold at the Sutton sale of 26 October 1933 as number 48; two other works we sell went the same day.
