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Lot Essay
In January 1874, although the preparations for the pivotal first Impressionist exhibition at the Société Annonyme des Artistes were in full swing, Monet left France for Amsterdam. This was his second stay in Holland after his trip of 1871, a voyage "through almost the whole of Holland", which had revealed to Monet a "beautiful country" (Letter to Pissaro, 2 June, 1871).
Monet's early attraction to the landscape of the Netherlands which the artist shared with his French colleagues, prompted him to chose Amsterdam for this new retreat which lasted from January to the end of March 1874, when he finally returned to France and settled in Argenteuil. 'The Amsterdam paintings show great variety of subject matter and effects. Monet seems to have found a room close to the central station and to have remained within a radius of some 1,500 metres of the station, though Amsterdam's canals must have made these expeditons longer on the ground. To the North was the Ij, the arm of the sea that appears in some of the Zaandam pictures, which he painted at the same time as the port (W.289 to W.299). Two images of snow were painted not far from his lodgings, one to the West of the station (W.201 ), the other to the South at the end of Gelderskad (W.300). There are two views of the whole of the old houses of the quarter (W.303 to W.304), one of which shows the famous Schreijerstoren, the tower climbed by women to wave goodbye to the parting sailors (W.303)...further to the South, on the banks of the Amstel - the river that gave Amsterdam its name - Monet painted the Zuiderkerk at the end of Groenburgval (W.308 to 309); the subject is reminiscent of the paintings of some old Dutch masters' (D. Wildenstein, Monet or the Triumph of Impressionism, London, 1996, p.109).
In this second stay, Monet built on his knowledge of Dutch Baroque masters, which he had acquired in his 1871 sojourn in Zaandam. The view of the Zuiderkerk, a homage to the Dutch tradition, proved to be Monet's favourite spot due to the possibilities of experimentation offered by the reflected light of the canals. He practised with different tonal contrasts, as in the present picture, the cool hues of which contrast with the grisaille tones of the Shelburne Museum version (W.306) and the warm atmosphere of the version in the Philadelphia Museum of Art (W.309, fig. 1).
The Zuiderkerk series demonstrates a technique that deeply influenced the later works of Monet's Impressionist colleagues. The artist's brushstroke is thin and fragmented and he does not induldge in the rich, thick impasto of his late masterpieces. Typically for his early works, in the present picture Monet uses the still-visible primed ground as a foil to the vigourous working of pigments, adding his own radical imprimatur to a classical Dutch scene indebted, as it is, to the masters of the 17th Century.
Monet's early attraction to the landscape of the Netherlands which the artist shared with his French colleagues, prompted him to chose Amsterdam for this new retreat which lasted from January to the end of March 1874, when he finally returned to France and settled in Argenteuil. 'The Amsterdam paintings show great variety of subject matter and effects. Monet seems to have found a room close to the central station and to have remained within a radius of some 1,500 metres of the station, though Amsterdam's canals must have made these expeditons longer on the ground. To the North was the Ij, the arm of the sea that appears in some of the Zaandam pictures, which he painted at the same time as the port (W.289 to W.299). Two images of snow were painted not far from his lodgings, one to the West of the station (W.201 ), the other to the South at the end of Gelderskad (W.300). There are two views of the whole of the old houses of the quarter (W.303 to W.304), one of which shows the famous Schreijerstoren, the tower climbed by women to wave goodbye to the parting sailors (W.303)...further to the South, on the banks of the Amstel - the river that gave Amsterdam its name - Monet painted the Zuiderkerk at the end of Groenburgval (W.308 to 309); the subject is reminiscent of the paintings of some old Dutch masters' (D. Wildenstein, Monet or the Triumph of Impressionism, London, 1996, p.109).
In this second stay, Monet built on his knowledge of Dutch Baroque masters, which he had acquired in his 1871 sojourn in Zaandam. The view of the Zuiderkerk, a homage to the Dutch tradition, proved to be Monet's favourite spot due to the possibilities of experimentation offered by the reflected light of the canals. He practised with different tonal contrasts, as in the present picture, the cool hues of which contrast with the grisaille tones of the Shelburne Museum version (W.306) and the warm atmosphere of the version in the Philadelphia Museum of Art (W.309, fig. 1).
The Zuiderkerk series demonstrates a technique that deeply influenced the later works of Monet's Impressionist colleagues. The artist's brushstroke is thin and fragmented and he does not induldge in the rich, thick impasto of his late masterpieces. Typically for his early works, in the present picture Monet uses the still-visible primed ground as a foil to the vigourous working of pigments, adding his own radical imprimatur to a classical Dutch scene indebted, as it is, to the masters of the 17th Century.