Description
Rouen Cathedral, Morning Sun is a hand-painted reproduction of the same Rouen façade in morning light: the stone breaks up into blue, pink and pale gold, the portal stays in shadow below, and above it the rose window barely separates from the wall. The original measures 63 x 92.2 cm, is oil on canvas and is held by the Musée d’Orsay in Paris under accession number RF 2000. The museum dates it to 1893, without reservation, and gives it the second name Harmonie bleue. We paint it in eight sizes or to your own, with a photograph of the finished work for approval before despatch.
| Title: | Rouen Cathedral, Morning Sun |
| Other titles: | La Cathédrale de Rouen. Le Portail, soleil matinal ; Harmonie bleue (the name in the museum record, with both parts) |
| Painter: | Claude Monet (1840–1926) |
| Year painted: | 1893 by the museum record, without reservation |
| Original size: | 63 cm x 92.2 cm |
| Original technique: | Oil on canvas |
| Painting style: | Impressionism, a series |
| Located at: | Musée d’Orsay, Paris (acc. no. RF 2000) |
| Our reproduction: | Hand-painted oil on canvas, eight sizes or made to measure |
Rouen Cathedral, Morning Sun – Claude Monet
What is on the canvas?
The same façade as in the other works of the series, but at a different hour. It reaches all four edges again. At the bottom centre stands the great portal, which stays in shadow and is the darkest place in the scene; above it the light breaks up into blue, pink and pale gold, so that the rose window barely separates from the wall around it. The paint is dense and grainy, set down in short touches side by side rather than in strokes. Figures and sky are hardly to be seen. The signature is at the lower right, in a dark colour — not at the lower left, as on the neighbouring canvas of this series.
What does “Harmonie bleue” mean?
It is the second part of the name the museum itself gives the work: “La Cathédrale de Rouen. Le Portail, soleil matinal ; Harmonie bleue”. The first part names the hour, the second the key of colour. All five Rouen cathedrals in this museum carry such a second part — harmonie brune, harmonie grise, harmonie bleue, harmonie blanche and harmonie bleue et or — and since these are a series on one motif, it is that second part that tells them apart. So we print it in the table beside the first.
How is the work dated, and where is the signature?
The museum dates it to 1893, with no range and no cautious “around”, so we give the year without reservation. The signature is on the canvas at the lower right, in a dark colour. The museum record lists no inscription — the field is empty — so this is an observation from the museum’s own photograph and not a transcription from the record. We cannot read a year beside the signature with any confidence on that photograph, so we give none. On the neighbouring canvas of the series the signature is at the lower left, and there the year is legible.
What does the museum record say about the size?
The work is held by the Musée d’Orsay under accession number RF 2000. It gives the measurements in the order height by width, 92.2 x 63 cm; our table puts the width first, so here you read 63 x 92.2 cm. Where the institution that holds a work and a database disagree, we follow the institution. With its frame the whole measures 75 x 103 cm.
How did the work reach the museum?
In a single line, and the line is the museum’s: “Legs comte Isaac de Camondo, 1911” — the bequest of Count Isaac de Camondo, 1911. Four of the five Rouen cathedrals the museum holds arrived this way; the fifth, the portal seen from the front, was bought directly from the painter in 1907. Ours is therefore one of the four. The museum publishes no longer chain of owners for this work, so we assemble none either.
The smallest of the five, and why size does separate this one
On the neighbouring canvas of this series we wrote that size separates nothing: RF 2779 and RF 2002 are five millimetres apart in width and nothing at all in height. Here it is the other way round. RF 2000 measures 63 x 92.2 cm and is the smallest of the five this museum holds — the next in size is RF 1999 “temps gris ; harmonie grise” at 65.4 x 100.2 cm, two and a half centimetres wider and eight centimetres taller. Then come RF 2001 at 73.2 x 106.5 cm, RF 2002 at 73.5 x 107 cm and RF 2779 at 74 x 107 cm — ours is the only one under 65 cm wide.
Which of our Rouen canvases is this?
The one the museum calls harmonie bleue, and the smallest of its five. The Claude Monet gallery carries five more views of the same façade, each with its own hour or its own key of colour: Rouen Cathedral, the Portal from the Front; Rouen Cathedral, Grey Weather; Rouen Cathedral, the Portal and Saint-Romain Tower; Rouen Cathedral, Portal and Tower Saint-Romain in Full Sunlight; and Rouen Cathedral, Portal.
How is our hand-painted version made?
Every order is painted individually by a painter, in oils on cotton or linen canvas. A canvas painting is made here with no print, no transfer and no machine step in between. This motif is demanding because of the morning light: blue and pink are laid side by side and not mixed, so the colour assembles only in the viewer’s eye. Mix those tones on the palette and the scene goes grey, losing the very thing it is named for. Every hand-painted oil painting that leaves our workshop is a little its own. Before despatch you receive a photograph of the finished work for approval.
Which size for which wall?
Eight sizes are available, from 38 x 55 to 120 x 170 cm. By size 60 x 90 cm comes very close to the original: three centimetres narrower and a good two shorter — on the portal from the front, which we also sell, the nearest size is four centimetres and seven from its original. By proportion the smallest size is nearest, 38 x 55 cm. The scene is tall and narrow, so it fills a narrow wall or the space between two windows. In a bedroom 60 x 90 cm works; as a painting for living room walls, 90 x 130 cm — and the larger sizes open the dotted paint into separate touches, which with this motif is a gain rather than a loss.
How high to hang the painting: the centre about 145 cm above the floor, and above furniture the lower edge 20 to 30 cm above it. We write more about hanging on our blog.
Made to measure, stretcher and frame
If you want the proportion of the original exactly, or its true size, made to measure is the only route: send us the width and the height in centimetres. The canvas can be stretched on a wooden stretcher and delivered ready to hang, or we can send it rolled in a tube. The frame is not included in the price. A pale or cool grey frame suits this scene and holds up the blue; a warm gold frame pulls it towards brown and takes away its name. The museum keeps its own original in a frame with which the whole measures 75 x 103 cm.
Delivery and guarantee
Making the work normally takes two to three weeks, a few days longer at the largest sizes, because the oil has to dry between layers. If the work arrives damaged, or differs noticeably from the approved photograph, we replace it or refund the price. A hand-painted copy is not a factory product and small differences in the stroke are to be expected; damage or the wrong motif are not. We deliver within the European Union.
If the painting is a gift and you are unsure of the size, there is a gift voucher: the recipient chooses the size and the subject.
Frequently asked questions
Where is the original?
In Paris, at the Musée d’Orsay, under accession number RF 2000, where it arrived in 1911 with the bequest of Count Isaac de Camondo.
What year is the work from?
The museum gives 1893, without reservation, and so do we.
Why did Monet paint Rouen Cathedral so many times?
He was not after the building but the light on it. In 1892 and 1893 he painted the west façade about thirty times, at different hours and in different weather, working on several canvases at once and switching as the light changed. He finished them in his studio in 1894.
How many times did Monet paint Rouen Cathedral?
More than thirty times, in 1892 and 1893; 28 of the canvases show the west façade. He finished them in his studio in 1894 and chose twenty for the show at Durand-Ruel in Paris in May 1895.
- Motif. The Rouen façade in morning light; the portal in shadow below, blue, pink and pale gold above it, the rose window barely set off from the wall.
- Original. Oil on canvas, 63 x 92.2 cm, dated by the museum to 1893; Musée d’Orsay, acc. no. RF 2000, Camondo bequest 1911.
- Ours. Eight sizes; 60 x 90 cm is three centimetres and a good two from the original, and by proportion 38 x 55 cm is nearest.
- Worth knowing. Of this museum’s five Rouen cathedrals ours is the smallest and the only one under 65 cm wide — here size separates them, on the neighbouring canvas of the series it does not.
