Description
The Seine at Giverny is a hand-painted reproduction of Monet’s canvas in the National Gallery of Art, Washington: on a misty morning a large round crown of foliage rises right of centre and repeats downward in the still water, a lower band of trees stands to the left, and sky and surface are the same pale cream and rose, so the edge between them is barely visible. The original measures 100.5 x 81.5 cm, is oil on canvas and carries accession number 1963.10.180. The museum dates it 1897 and the signature at the lower left reads »Claude Monet«, with no year. We paint it in eight sizes or to your own, with a photograph of the finished work sent for approval before dispatch.
| Title: | The Seine at Giverny |
| Other titles: | The museum’s own title is the same, The Seine at Giverny; in the Wildenstein catalogue the work is number 1494; the museum prints the identifier Wikidata Q20190589 on its own page |
| Painter: | Claude Monet (1840–1926) |
| Year painted: | 1897 per the museum record, without reservation; the signature at the lower left reads »Claude Monet«, with no year |
| Original size: | 100.5 cm x 81.5 cm |
| Original technique: | Oil on canvas |
| Painting style: | Impressionism |
| Located at: | National Gallery of Art, Washington (inv. 1963.10.180) |
| Our reproduction: | Hand-painted oil on canvas, eight sizes or made to measure |
The Seine at Giverny – Claude Monet
What is on the canvas?
A misty morning on the river. Right of centre a large round crown rises, made of short strokes in blue-green, brown and a mild yellow; below it the crown repeats in the water, a little darker and drawn out. To the left stands a lower band of trees in bluish and green, doubling the same way.
Sky above and water below are painted with the same long, faintly curving strokes in pale cream and rose. That is why there is hardly an edge between them: where a bank would be expected there is only the place where the strokes change direction. The range is narrow, and no figure, building or boat appears anywhere.
The museum publishes a description of its own and names the same things: feathery canopies mirrored in placid water, the largest tree right of centre, the horizon across the middle, sky and reflection in curving strokes of parchment white and shell pink.
What is written on the canvas?
At the lower left, in the pale water, the signature stands in blue strokes: Claude Monet. No year follows it.
The museum gives it exactly so — “lower left: Claude Monet” — and adds no year. That is worth saying, because the canvas of the same group and year in Chicago does carry one: there it reads “Claude Monet 97”. Here the year is set by the museum record, not the painter.
What does the museum record say about the work?
The work is held by the National Gallery of Art in Washington under accession number 1963.10.180. It publishes the measurements height first, 81.5 and 100.5 cm; our table puts the width first, so here you read 100.5 x 81.5 cm. With the frame it gives 121.6 x 102.6 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 1494. It gives the same year and measurements, so the sources do not diverge; we say so because silence about a divergence and a source never checked look identical on a page.
Whose hands has the canvas passed through?
The museum publishes the full chain of owners 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 72.
There George Roberts bought it for Chester Dale (1882–1962), who left it to the museum by bequest in 1963. For that last link the museum names its source: copies of the Dale papers in its own files.
What happened on 26 October 1933?
At the Sutton sale that day at least three canvases we sell were sold, and all three later ended with the same collector and in the same bequest — not an inference but the sum of three museum records: this canvas as number 72, Banks of the Seine, Vétheuil as number 48, and Rouen Cathedral, Portal as number 58.
Dale got the first two at once; the third was bought by Wilbur L. Cummings, who sold it to him in 1935. All three came to the museum with the same bequest of 1963.
The museum also publishes where it hangs: Gallery 80, main floor of the West Building. By its records two more canvases we sell stand in that room — the Vétheuil one above and The Willows, likewise dated 1880. That is the museum’s information, not an arrangement of ours.
How many canvases are in the 1897 morning group?
How many there are we do not claim, because the museum record does not say. We claim what is written: the Art Institute of Chicago holds Bras de Seine près de Giverny of the same year 1897, 92.7 x 89.9 cm, oil on canvas, inscribed lower left “Claude Monet 97”.
Why does this work matter?
Because it takes almost everything away. There is no figure, no building and no boat; what is left is the mass of the trees and its repetition on the water, in a range narrower than in most of the painter’s work. An impressionist painting of this kind tells no story and stakes everything on light.
Twenty-nine years earlier the same painter worked on the same river in On the Banks of the Seine, Bennecourt, where a woman, a village and a boat are still on the canvas and the original measures 100.7 x 81.5 cm — two millimetres wider. Same river, almost the same size, and in between everything that is not water and reflection has gone.
The third thing is the boundary: because sky and water are the same colour, the viewer infers the horizon from the direction of the strokes rather than seeing a line.
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 exactly what is missing: sky and water must stay one colour but in a different direction of stroke, or the canvas breaks into two bands and the mist is gone.
The second test is the crown. The blue-green, brown and yellow strokes must not run together into one mass, or the tree becomes a silhouette. Work of this kind will not take a high gloss, so ours is matt. A hand-painted copy is not a facsimile, and a Monet reproduction of this kind rests entirely on brushwork: two canvases of the same size always differ in it.
Which size for which wall?
There are eight sizes, from 45 x 38 to 150 x 120 cm. By size the closest is 90 x 70 cm, 10.5 cm narrower and 11.5 cm shorter. By proportion the closest are 50 x 40 and 150 x 120 cm, both at 1.2500 against 1.2331; 60 x 50 and 120 x 100 sit further off at 1.2000.
For a large wall there is 150 x 120 cm, also one of the two truest in proportion. Because the range is quiet, this painting for the bedroom works where a colourful subject would be too much. All sizes are listed in our Claude Monet gallery.
How high to hang the painting: centre about 150 cm above the floor, so the crown stays 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 121.6 x 102.6 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; 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 1963.10.180, Gallery 80.
What is this work about, in one sentence?
About a morning in which the boundary between water and sky is lost.
How many Mornings on the Seine did Monet paint?
Twenty-one canvases, in the summers of 1896 and 1897. He set up his easel at half past three in the morning in a boat moored off the bank near his house at Giverny and painted the light as the sun came up; fifteen were shown at the Galerie Georges Petit in 1898.
What year is it from?
1897. It belongs to the Mornings on the Seine series, which Monet painted at dawn from a boat near Giverny.
- Subject. A misty morning on the Seine at Giverny: a round crown right of centre, its reflection in still water, sky and surface one pale cream.
- Original. Oil on canvas, 100.5 x 81.5 cm, 1897; signed lower left Claude Monet, no year; National Gallery of Art, Washington, inv. 1963.10.180.
- Ours. Eight sizes; 90 x 70 cm closest by size, 50 x 40 and 150 x 120 by proportion.
- Worth knowing. It sold at the Sutton sale of 26 October 1933 as number 72; two other works we sell went the same day.
