Claude Monet painting in his studio boat
Monet at work in his floating studio on the Seine at Argenteuil — the river bend is still there below the road bridge.
Pont d'Argenteuil
The painting shows a real, identified place that you can find today. The exact spot the artist worked from is not necessarily known.
Claude Monet painting in his studio boat — at a glance
- Artist
- Édouard Manet (1832–1883)
- Year
- 1874
- Movement
- Impressionism
- Place
- The Seine at Argenteuil, north-west of Paris
- Viewpoint
- A moored studio boat on the river — the reach survives; Argenteuil is now a suburb
- Medium
- Oil on canvas
- Dimensions
- c. 82 × 100 cm
- Now at
- Neue Pinakothek, Munich
Overview
This is a picture of one painter by another, made in the summer of 1874 when Édouard Manet stayed at Gennevilliers, across the Seine from Claude Monet at Argenteuil. It shows Monet seated in the cabin of his studio boat, brush and palette in hand, painting the riverbank, with his wife Camille beside him in the shade of the awning. It is oil on canvas, about 82 by 100 cm, and it hangs in the Neue Pinakothek, Munich.
That summer at Argenteuil, with Manet, Monet and Renoir working side by side on the river, is often called the high point of Impressionism.
The story behind the painting
Scholarship Monet had bought a broad, flat boat and built a little cabin on it, following the example of the earlier landscape painter Daubigny, so that he could paint the Seine from the middle of the water in changing light. Manet, working alongside him that summer and himself moving towards a lighter, open-air manner under Monet's influence, painted his friend at this floating easel.
Where was Claude Monet painting in his studio boat painted?
Scholarship Argenteuil is on the Seine about 10 km north-west of central Paris, then a small town with boatyards and a popular sailing reach, easily reached by train. Monet lived there from 1871 to 1878 and painted the river, the bridges and the sailboats constantly. The stretch of river, the road and rail bridges and the far bank survive, though Argenteuil is now a dense suburb; the picture shows a moored boat on the water rather than a fixed, identifiable spot on the bank.
What is in the painting?
The dark hull and white cabin of the studio boat lie along the picture, moored near the bank. Monet sits in the cabin doorway in a straw hat, leaning to a canvas on an easel, looking off to the right at his motif. Camille sits further back in the shadow of the awning. The Seine is worked in broad blue, green and grey strokes with reflections of the boat and the trees; the opposite bank, with houses and foliage, closes the top of the canvas.
Look closely
Monet at the easel
Seated in the cabin doorway in a straw hat, brush and palette in hand, looking off to his motif.
Camille Monet
Sitting further back in the shade of the boat's awning.
The cabin
The little white deckhouse Monet had built so he could work from the middle of the river.
Manet's new touch
The water is painted in loose blue-green strokes — the plein-air method Manet had just taken up from Monet.
Analysis
Composition and technique
The boat lies across the canvas as a strong horizontal; the two figures are set into its dark cabin, the rest is water.
Scholarship Manet places the boat parallel to the picture plane and lets it divide water from far bank. The figures are compact and shadowed against the white cabin; the river around them is painted with a loose, Monet-like touch that Manet had recently adopted, so the picture is partly a demonstration of the new method as well as a portrait.
Colour and light
Bright outdoor colour — blue and green water, white cabin, straw hats — with the figures kept in cool shadow.
The palette is high-keyed and sunny, the water full of blue, green and touches of pink; Manet keeps his blacks (the hull, Monet's jacket) but surrounds them with the broken colour of plein-air painting.
History & provenance
The painting passed through French collections and was acquired by the Bavarian State Painting Collections; it hangs in the Neue Pinakothek, Munich.
Sources
- Neue Pinakothek / Bayerische Staatsgemäldesammlungen, Munich — collection entry for Édouard Manet, ‘Claude Monet Painting in His Studio Boat’ (1874; oil on canvas, c. 82 × 100 cm)
- Juliet Wilson-Bareau, ‘Manet and Argenteuil’ literature
Frequently asked
Who painted this, and who is in it?
It was painted by Édouard Manet in 1874. It shows Claude Monet painting in his studio boat, with his wife Camille Monet beside him.
What is the studio boat?
A broad, flat boat that Monet had fitted with a small cabin so he could paint the Seine from the water in changing light, following the earlier example of the painter Daubigny.
Where was it painted?
On the Seine at Argenteuil, about 10 km north-west of central Paris, where Monet lived from 1871 to 1878 and where Manet, Monet and Renoir all worked together in the summer of 1874.
Can you visit the spot?
The reach of the Seine at Argenteuil, with its bridges and far bank, is still there, though the town is now a dense suburb. The picture shows a boat on the water, not a fixed point on the bank.
Where is the painting now?
In the Neue Pinakothek, Munich.
Related paintings
The Grand Canal
1908
Monet on the water in Venice decades later — the studio-boat habit of painting from mid-river carried to its end.
The Railway
1873
Manet's Gare Saint-Lazare of 1873 — the same friendship and the same modern subject matter, a year earlier.
Garden at Sainte-Adresse
1867
Monet's own bright Seine-estuary terrace of 1867 — the world this boat was built to paint.
More by Édouard Manet
A Bar at the Folies-Bergère
The Railway
Music in the Tuileries
