Effect of Snow on Petit-Montrouge
A snowy street corner in the Petit-Montrouge quarter of Paris, painted by Manet while serving in the National Guard during the 1870 siege.
Saint-Pierre-de-Montrouge
The painting shows a real, identified place that you can find today. The exact spot the artist worked from is not necessarily known.
Effect of Snow on Petit-Montrouge — at a glance
- Artist
- Édouard Manet (1832–1883)
- Year
- 1870
- Movement
- Impressionism / Realism
- Place
- Petit-Montrouge, 14th arrondissement, Paris
- Viewpoint
- A street by Saint-Pierre-de-Montrouge church — the church survives; the open street is built up
- Medium
- Oil on canvas
- Dimensions
- c. 60 × 50 cm
- Now at
- National Museum Cardiff
Overview
Effect of Snow on Petit-Montrouge is a small, quick oil sketch Édouard Manet painted in December 1870, during the Siege of Paris in the Franco-Prussian War, when he was serving as a gunner in the National Guard. It shows a corner of the southern Paris suburb of Petit-Montrouge under snow: a slice of street, bare trees, a wall, and the tower of the church of Saint-Pierre-de-Montrouge, all in a few muted strokes. It is oil on canvas, about 60 by 50 cm, and it hangs in the National Museum Cardiff.
Where was Effect of Snow on Petit-Montrouge painted?
Scholarship Petit-Montrouge is the district around the present Place Victor-Basch (‘carrefour Alésia’) in the fourteenth arrondissement, on the southern edge of Paris. The large church of Saint-Pierre-de-Montrouge, whose tower Manet shows, was newly built (1863–72) and still stands there, so the general location is fixed and recognisable, though the open, half-suburban street of 1870 has been completely built up.
What is in the painting?
The picture is thin and rapid. A pale, snow-covered street or open space runs across the foreground; a low wall and leafless trees stand at the left; the grey mass and tower of the church rise at the right against a heavy sky. A figure or two may be indicated. The colour is almost all grey, off-white and dull brown — a cold, besieged winter day.
Look closely
The church tower
The grey mass and tower of Saint-Pierre-de-Montrouge rise at the right — the one firm vertical.
The bare trees and wall
A low wall and leafless trees at the left edge the snow-covered open ground.
The thin, fast paint
Snow, wall, trees and church are blocked in as flat tones with a loaded brush — a note made under siege.
Analysis
Composition and technique
A bare, simplified street corner painted alla prima in a few strokes, the church tower the one firm vertical.
Scholarship Manet works fast and thin, blocking in the snow, wall, trees and church as flat tones with a loaded brush. It has the character of a note made in difficult circumstances — direct, unfinished, atmospheric — rather than an exhibition picture.
History & provenance
The painting entered the collection of the Welsh sisters Gwendoline and Margaret Davies and was given with it to the National Museum of Wales; it hangs in National Museum Cardiff.
Sources
- Amgueddfa Cymru – National Museum Wales, Cardiff — collection entry for Édouard Manet, ‘Effect of Snow on Petit-Montrouge’ (1870)
- Juliet Wilson-Bareau, ‘Manet: The Execution of Maximilian’ and siege-period literature
Related paintings
The Rue Mosnier Dressed with Flags
1878
Manet's other quick Paris street view, from 1878 — the same quarter of the city, in peacetime and flags.
Snow at Argenteuil
1875
Monet's snowy Argenteuil streets of 1874–75 — the Impressionist town under snow.
Boulevard Montmartre, Mardi Gras
1897
Pissarro's boulevard from a window — the Paris street as a repeated subject.
More by Édouard Manet
A Bar at the Folies-Bergère
The Railway
Music in the Tuileries
