Plus 1880s
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Except otherwise stated, all results include the premium.
Except otherwise stated, all results include the premium.
1880 Vétheuil by Monet
2022 SOLD for £ 11.7M by Sotheby's
Claude Monet had developed in Argenteuil his new style of painting that became the most typical impressionism : drawing no longer exists, replaced by spots and textures while fully respecting perspective and proportions. Argenteuil was nevertheless no longer suitable to meet his artistic requirements. His search for the expression of landscape made him travel across Normandie.
He leaves Argenteuil in 1878 due to financial difficulties and settles at Vétheuil, an untouched village further along the Seine, with his beloved wife Camille and a couple of friends, Ernest and Alice Hoschedé. This period also marks his parting away from the Impressionniste group.
1879 is a very bad year. Camille, who had been nursed by Alice during her terminal illness, dies in September. Claude had used much his remaining money for her medical care.
Monet continues nevertheless to paint. His favorite theme is the changes of light over the Seine river, at Vétheuil and on the village 300 m across the river, Lavacourt. He produced about 150 outdoor paintings during his three years at Vetheuil, his last residence before Giverny.
La Seine à Lavacourt, oil on canvas 60 x 82 cm painted in 1879, was sold by Christie's on May 8, 2018 for $ 15.8M, lot 11. This river scenery with the village on the other shore was made in a hot summer morning with a lot of cottony clouds passing in the blue sky.
On June 29, 2022, Sotheby's sold for £ 11.7M a view of Vétheuil with a dark blue river and a blue sky with small white clouds, lot 120. The village is hidden within the lush trees. This oil on canvas 60 x 100 cm is dated 1880.
He leaves Argenteuil in 1878 due to financial difficulties and settles at Vétheuil, an untouched village further along the Seine, with his beloved wife Camille and a couple of friends, Ernest and Alice Hoschedé. This period also marks his parting away from the Impressionniste group.
1879 is a very bad year. Camille, who had been nursed by Alice during her terminal illness, dies in September. Claude had used much his remaining money for her medical care.
Monet continues nevertheless to paint. His favorite theme is the changes of light over the Seine river, at Vétheuil and on the village 300 m across the river, Lavacourt. He produced about 150 outdoor paintings during his three years at Vetheuil, his last residence before Giverny.
La Seine à Lavacourt, oil on canvas 60 x 82 cm painted in 1879, was sold by Christie's on May 8, 2018 for $ 15.8M, lot 11. This river scenery with the village on the other shore was made in a hot summer morning with a lot of cottony clouds passing in the blue sky.
On June 29, 2022, Sotheby's sold for £ 11.7M a view of Vétheuil with a dark blue river and a blue sky with small white clouds, lot 120. The village is hidden within the lush trees. This oil on canvas 60 x 100 cm is dated 1880.
1880 L'Homme au Balcon by Caillebotte
2000 SOLD for $ 14.3M by Christie's
With Haussmann's works, Paris lost its dangerous and unhealthy medieval streets to the benefit of wide boulevards which became the symbol of the social success of the bourgeoisie. Very attracted by the Opera district, the Caillebotte brothers moved in 1879 to the sixth floor of a luxurious building at 31 boulevard Haussmann.
Gustave Caillebotte does not need to sell his paintings. He appropriates Monet's virtuosity, which he adapts to the scenes of his familiar surrounding. He wanted to be seen as a guarantor of impressionism at a time when new styles, notably around Degas, were questioning the basics of the movement.
In his apartment, Caillebotte develops the theme of the balcony, this observatory that ensures the transition between the cozy interior and the grandiose exterior. On May 8, 2000, Christie's sold for $ 14.3M L'Homme au balcon Boulevard Haussmann, oil on canvas 117 x 90 cm painted in 1880, lot 8. The image is shared by Wikimedia.
Seen from behind, the standing man looks at the boulevard above which he has a dominant position. He is a visitor : he kept his top hat according to the fashion of the time, quite similar to the one we see on photos featuring Gustave.
The balance of this composition makes it an example worthy for demonstration, which Caillebotte will exhibit in 1882 at the Septième Exposition des Artistes Indépendants. On a beautiful sunny day, the foliage and buildings appear between the wrought iron grille and the elegant two-tone canopy.
This painting was given by the artist to his notary, who is probably the bourgeois of this scene.
Gustave Caillebotte does not need to sell his paintings. He appropriates Monet's virtuosity, which he adapts to the scenes of his familiar surrounding. He wanted to be seen as a guarantor of impressionism at a time when new styles, notably around Degas, were questioning the basics of the movement.
In his apartment, Caillebotte develops the theme of the balcony, this observatory that ensures the transition between the cozy interior and the grandiose exterior. On May 8, 2000, Christie's sold for $ 14.3M L'Homme au balcon Boulevard Haussmann, oil on canvas 117 x 90 cm painted in 1880, lot 8. The image is shared by Wikimedia.
Seen from behind, the standing man looks at the boulevard above which he has a dominant position. He is a visitor : he kept his top hat according to the fashion of the time, quite similar to the one we see on photos featuring Gustave.
The balance of this composition makes it an example worthy for demonstration, which Caillebotte will exhibit in 1882 at the Septième Exposition des Artistes Indépendants. On a beautiful sunny day, the foliage and buildings appear between the wrought iron grille and the elegant two-tone canopy.
This painting was given by the artist to his notary, who is probably the bourgeois of this scene.
1884 Petit Gennevilliers by Caillebotte
2019 SOLD for $ 19.7M by Sotheby's
Gustave Caillebotte is a wealthy Parisian bourgeois. After the death of his mother, he gives up the family home at Yerres and buys an estate in Petit-Gennevilliers to build his house and his studio. Close to the Argenteuil bridge, he thus settles in a place beloved by his impressionist friends where he could devote himself to his passion for boating.
Caillebotte does not need money. His works are most often in relation with his private life, in Paris, Gennevilliers or Trouville. In the early 1880s he desires to be the representative of the earliest Impressionist style and manages to move away from the group, having therefore more time for hobbies and painting.
He has many friends, including a former school fellow named Richard Gallo of whom he has made since 1878 several salon portraits. He manages to attract this young townsman for a visit to Gennevilliers.
On November 12, 2019, Sotheby's sold for $ 19.7M Richard Gallo et son chien Dick au Petit-Gennevilliers, lot 25. The image is shared by Wikimedia.
This very large oil on canvas 89 x 116 cm painted in 1884 has an unconventional composition as it was liked by Caillebotte or Degas. The Seine river displays all its colors and reflections. On the other side, sparse little houses reveal that we are not in Paris.
In contrast, the bank at the foreground is poorly lit. The bourgeois follows the dog from a distance, without obstructing the central view to the river. Both are seen in profile as silhouettes. They are in the fashion of Paris, the man with his frock coat, hat and cane and the poodle shorn "à la lion".
The river seems to be the main theme of this painting. Exhibited in 1888 with the title Portrait de M. R.G., it was indeed considered by the artist as a portrait of his friend, perhaps meaning nicely that the social gap between city and countryside is not irremediable. Presented by the artist to Gallo, it was not included in the bequest of the Caillebotte collection to the French state.
Caillebotte does not need money. His works are most often in relation with his private life, in Paris, Gennevilliers or Trouville. In the early 1880s he desires to be the representative of the earliest Impressionist style and manages to move away from the group, having therefore more time for hobbies and painting.
He has many friends, including a former school fellow named Richard Gallo of whom he has made since 1878 several salon portraits. He manages to attract this young townsman for a visit to Gennevilliers.
On November 12, 2019, Sotheby's sold for $ 19.7M Richard Gallo et son chien Dick au Petit-Gennevilliers, lot 25. The image is shared by Wikimedia.
This very large oil on canvas 89 x 116 cm painted in 1884 has an unconventional composition as it was liked by Caillebotte or Degas. The Seine river displays all its colors and reflections. On the other side, sparse little houses reveal that we are not in Paris.
In contrast, the bank at the foreground is poorly lit. The bourgeois follows the dog from a distance, without obstructing the central view to the river. Both are seen in profile as silhouettes. They are in the fashion of Paris, the man with his frock coat, hat and cane and the poodle shorn "à la lion".
The river seems to be the main theme of this painting. Exhibited in 1888 with the title Portrait de M. R.G., it was indeed considered by the artist as a portrait of his friend, perhaps meaning nicely that the social gap between city and countryside is not irremediable. Presented by the artist to Gallo, it was not included in the bequest of the Caillebotte collection to the French state.
1888 Gelée Blanche by Pissarro
2020 SOLD for £ 13.3M by Sotheby's
Camille Pissarro could be considered as the ultimate guarantor of the impressionist movement. He is the only artist whose paintings have been included in all the eight exhibitions of the group. He could just as well be considered as their gravedigger : the refusal of Monet, Sisley, Renoir and Caillebotte to participate in the last event in 1886 is by protest against the support provided by Pissarro to his new friends Seurat and Signac.
Pissarro moved away from the Paris region in 1884 to settle in Eragny-sur-Epte, near Gisors and not far from Giverny. He observes an authentic peasant life in a pleasant rural landscape. In that place, to better capture the quiet atmosphere of the countryside, he begins using divisionist techniques. Seurat is very proud of this apostasy from impressionism by one of its most famous exponents.
Divisionism, or pointillism, is a painstaking process which is hardly compatible with Pissarro's desire for spontaneity and humanism. At the time of Seurat's untimely death in 1891, he states that this technique is no longer suiting him. The hatched knife painting of Pissarro's pointillist works paves however the way for the precise and meticulous touch of the rest of his career.
Signac had managed to convince Seurat that pointillism was taking all its advantage when expressing an intense light. This remark is superbly applied by Pissarro in his painting Gelée blanche subtitled Jeune paysanne faisant du feu, oil on canvas 93 x 93 cm conceived in spring 1887 and completed in July 1888.
On a sunny winter morning, a peasant girl helped by a young boy feeds a big wood fire in a meadow. She is bent under the wind which pushes her skirt, imitating the position of the woman in Millet's Angelus like a snub from the anarchist to the religious scene of his predecessor. The warm clothes of the boy confirm a very cold weather.
The technical feat in this work is the extreme luminosity of the smoke, made up of a crossed pattern of blue hatching gradually interspersed with large white lines in a contrasting effect which provides a three-dimensional illusion.
This brilliant painting is perhaps a unique tour de force within the short pointillist period of Pissarro. It was seized in 1940 in Paris from a Jewish collector. Restituted in 2018 to his heirs after having been entrusted for eighteen years to the Musée d'Orsay, it was sold for £ 13.3M from a lower estimate of £ 8M by Sotheby's on February 4, 2020, lot 11.
Please watch the video shared by the auction house, including a painting by Signac with the same provenance.
Pissarro moved away from the Paris region in 1884 to settle in Eragny-sur-Epte, near Gisors and not far from Giverny. He observes an authentic peasant life in a pleasant rural landscape. In that place, to better capture the quiet atmosphere of the countryside, he begins using divisionist techniques. Seurat is very proud of this apostasy from impressionism by one of its most famous exponents.
Divisionism, or pointillism, is a painstaking process which is hardly compatible with Pissarro's desire for spontaneity and humanism. At the time of Seurat's untimely death in 1891, he states that this technique is no longer suiting him. The hatched knife painting of Pissarro's pointillist works paves however the way for the precise and meticulous touch of the rest of his career.
Signac had managed to convince Seurat that pointillism was taking all its advantage when expressing an intense light. This remark is superbly applied by Pissarro in his painting Gelée blanche subtitled Jeune paysanne faisant du feu, oil on canvas 93 x 93 cm conceived in spring 1887 and completed in July 1888.
On a sunny winter morning, a peasant girl helped by a young boy feeds a big wood fire in a meadow. She is bent under the wind which pushes her skirt, imitating the position of the woman in Millet's Angelus like a snub from the anarchist to the religious scene of his predecessor. The warm clothes of the boy confirm a very cold weather.
The technical feat in this work is the extreme luminosity of the smoke, made up of a crossed pattern of blue hatching gradually interspersed with large white lines in a contrasting effect which provides a three-dimensional illusion.
This brilliant painting is perhaps a unique tour de force within the short pointillist period of Pissarro. It was seized in 1940 in Paris from a Jewish collector. Restituted in 2018 to his heirs after having been entrusted for eighteen years to the Musée d'Orsay, it was sold for £ 13.3M from a lower estimate of £ 8M by Sotheby's on February 4, 2020, lot 11.
Please watch the video shared by the auction house, including a painting by Signac with the same provenance.
Three Impressionist masterpieces stolen by the Nazis are heading to auction: https://t.co/ZAUbpnbn4C pic.twitter.com/XiWLOK0Tef
— Artnet (@artnet) January 13, 2020
1888 Le Pont de Trinquetaille by Van Gogh
1987 SOLD for £ 12.5M (worth at that time $ 20M) by Christie's
The Trinquetaille bridge inspired Vincent van Gogh for the second time, in October 1888. His goal was to decorate the Maison Jaune, which he saw as the focal point of his Atelier du Midi.
This time, his subject is a close-up view of the stone staircase leading to the span. He had described this project along with a sketch in a letter to Theo on October 13, ten days before Gauguin's arrival.
Vincent shows in this painting the subtlety of the lights on a gray morning. The colors are brought by an almost blue sky, the clothes of passers-by and, truncated under an arch on the right edge of the image, the leaves yellowed by the autumn of a single plane tree.
This oil on canvas 93 x 74 cm was sold by Christie's on June 28, 1987 for £ 12.5M including premium then worth $ 20M. The image is shared by Wikimedia.
La Nuit Etoilée, painted in late September 1888, is a night scenery of the same bridge.
This time, his subject is a close-up view of the stone staircase leading to the span. He had described this project along with a sketch in a letter to Theo on October 13, ten days before Gauguin's arrival.
Vincent shows in this painting the subtlety of the lights on a gray morning. The colors are brought by an almost blue sky, the clothes of passers-by and, truncated under an arch on the right edge of the image, the leaves yellowed by the autumn of a single plane tree.
This oil on canvas 93 x 74 cm was sold by Christie's on June 28, 1987 for £ 12.5M including premium then worth $ 20M. The image is shared by Wikimedia.
La Nuit Etoilée, painted in late September 1888, is a night scenery of the same bridge.
1888 Antibes vue de la Salis by Monet
2024 SOLD for $ 14M by Sotheby's
Monet and Van Gogh arrived almost simultaneously in Provence in the winter 1888. Vincent chose Arles and Monet was in Antibes so that they could not meet. At that time, Vincent was indeed more interested in the new style of the post-impressionists including Signac.
Their quests are opposite. Vincent finds the purity of light, but Monet for the first time is fairly short to transcribe all the subtle shades of color.
During three and a half months, Monet executes his usual approach of selecting some typical views and observing the variations by the hours of the day. But he is not in Normandy. When the sky is clear, the light is so beautiful that extreme hours become secondary. Monet does not find in Antibes that brutality which he loves so much in nature. His color studies however anticipate the series of Meules (haystacks), painted in 1890.
The shining light of Provence has won. The best paintings from his Antibes residence show a blazing sun, but in views that are as topographic as a Vernet. The sea is deep blue while the variations between sky and mountains create a wonderful atmosphere. The ground in full sunlight displays a harmony of rare colors.
Antibes vue de la Salis (also spelled Salice) is a series of four views at various times of the day in oil on canvas 65 x 92 cm. The dawn view with the trees still in the shadow was sold for $ 13.3M by Sotheby's on November 16, 2021, lot 33.
Another view displays Antibes vue de la Salis in early daylight when the leaves are still barely touched by sunlight. The town in the background is still bathed in the cool purplish hues of the early morning.
It was sold by Sotheby's for £ 8.8M on February 3, 2015, lot 8. and for $ 14M on May 15, 2024, lot 33. The image is shared by Wikimedia.
The other two paintings are in museums, respectively in Philadelphia for the later morning with a green sea and in Toledo OH for the afternoon with blue sky.
On June 23, 2014, Sotheby's sold for £ 8M one of the best views of Antibes by Monet, oil on canvas 65 x 92 cm, lot 8. Please watch the video shared by the auction house. The pretty town is in bright light on the other side of the bay. There is virtually no shadow.
There was a link between Monet and the van Goghs. Back from Antibes, Monet released ten paintings to Theo for an exhibition by Boussod et Valadon and their subsequent brokering to them.
Their quests are opposite. Vincent finds the purity of light, but Monet for the first time is fairly short to transcribe all the subtle shades of color.
During three and a half months, Monet executes his usual approach of selecting some typical views and observing the variations by the hours of the day. But he is not in Normandy. When the sky is clear, the light is so beautiful that extreme hours become secondary. Monet does not find in Antibes that brutality which he loves so much in nature. His color studies however anticipate the series of Meules (haystacks), painted in 1890.
The shining light of Provence has won. The best paintings from his Antibes residence show a blazing sun, but in views that are as topographic as a Vernet. The sea is deep blue while the variations between sky and mountains create a wonderful atmosphere. The ground in full sunlight displays a harmony of rare colors.
Antibes vue de la Salis (also spelled Salice) is a series of four views at various times of the day in oil on canvas 65 x 92 cm. The dawn view with the trees still in the shadow was sold for $ 13.3M by Sotheby's on November 16, 2021, lot 33.
Another view displays Antibes vue de la Salis in early daylight when the leaves are still barely touched by sunlight. The town in the background is still bathed in the cool purplish hues of the early morning.
It was sold by Sotheby's for £ 8.8M on February 3, 2015, lot 8. and for $ 14M on May 15, 2024, lot 33. The image is shared by Wikimedia.
The other two paintings are in museums, respectively in Philadelphia for the later morning with a green sea and in Toledo OH for the afternoon with blue sky.
On June 23, 2014, Sotheby's sold for £ 8M one of the best views of Antibes by Monet, oil on canvas 65 x 92 cm, lot 8. Please watch the video shared by the auction house. The pretty town is in bright light on the other side of the bay. There is virtually no shadow.
There was a link between Monet and the van Goghs. Back from Antibes, Monet released ten paintings to Theo for an exhibition by Boussod et Valadon and their subsequent brokering to them.
1888 Le Moulin de Limetz by Monet
2024 SOLD for $ 21.7M by Christie's
Limetz is a rural village on the junction of the Epte and the Seine rivers. Its grain mill is a non-significant building behind a stone bridge about one and a half kilometers away from Monet's home.
In 1888, back from his trip in south France, Monet executed two similar paintings in oil on canvas 92 x 73 cm of the mill of Limetz, in the same scale from the same viewpoint, differentiated by the color palette, probably executed simultaneously in Summer. This pair anticipates the great series of the 1890s.
The artist desired to express the dense foliage of the willow tree beside the rippling water, while the downsized mill blurred by the Impressionist touch is hardly visible. Monet's nature is made of light, air and water.
These views served to Monet to reassess his allegiance to the impressionism after some criticism had been raised against his 'decorative' views of south France.
One of the pictures expresses a warm light through the foliage. It is painted in a thick impasto. Within a dominant green, the dazzling array of colors includes blue, violet, flashes of emerald green, pastel pink and cream. The reflections in the river displayed in another range of exquisite colors in blue, green, white and pink anticipate the views of the Giverny pond in the next century.
It was sold for $ 21.7M by Christie's on May 16, 2024, lot 8 B, in part to benefit the future acquisitions by the Nelson-Atkins museum in Kansas City. Please watch the video shared by the auction house.
The other view of the Moulin de Limetz is luminous with bursts of red within a symphony of greens, purples and pinks. The tree is in a cool shadow. It was sold for $ 25.6M by Sotheby's on November 13, 2023, lot 13.
In 1888, back from his trip in south France, Monet executed two similar paintings in oil on canvas 92 x 73 cm of the mill of Limetz, in the same scale from the same viewpoint, differentiated by the color palette, probably executed simultaneously in Summer. This pair anticipates the great series of the 1890s.
The artist desired to express the dense foliage of the willow tree beside the rippling water, while the downsized mill blurred by the Impressionist touch is hardly visible. Monet's nature is made of light, air and water.
These views served to Monet to reassess his allegiance to the impressionism after some criticism had been raised against his 'decorative' views of south France.
One of the pictures expresses a warm light through the foliage. It is painted in a thick impasto. Within a dominant green, the dazzling array of colors includes blue, violet, flashes of emerald green, pastel pink and cream. The reflections in the river displayed in another range of exquisite colors in blue, green, white and pink anticipate the views of the Giverny pond in the next century.
It was sold for $ 21.7M by Christie's on May 16, 2024, lot 8 B, in part to benefit the future acquisitions by the Nelson-Atkins museum in Kansas City. Please watch the video shared by the auction house.
The other view of the Moulin de Limetz is luminous with bursts of red within a symphony of greens, purples and pinks. The tree is in a cool shadow. It was sold for $ 25.6M by Sotheby's on November 13, 2023, lot 13.
