On the Banks of the Seine, Bennecourt
Camille Monet seated under a tree on the Seine bank at Bennecourt, the village of Gloton mirrored in the river opposite.
Seine
The painting depicts a real landscape or cityscape. The precise viewpoint the artist used may be unknown, so the marker shows the general area.
On the Banks of the Seine, Bennecourt — at a glance
- Artist
- Claude Monet (1840–1926)
- Year
- 1868
- Movement
- Impressionism (early)
- Place
- The Seine at Bennecourt, opposite Gloton, west of Paris
- Viewpoint
- A spot on the Bennecourt bank — river and villages survive, semi-rural; not a marked spot
- Medium
- Oil on canvas
- Dimensions
- c. 82 × 100 cm
- Now at
- Art Institute of Chicago
Overview
On the Bank of the Seine, Bennecourt is an early open-air picture by Claude Monet, painted in the summer of 1868. Camille Doncieux, in a striped dress and hat, sits with her back to us on the grassy bank under a tree, gazing across a still stretch of the Seine to a row of pale riverside houses and their reflections. A rowing boat is drawn up at the water's edge. It is oil on canvas, about 82 by 100 cm, and it hangs in the Art Institute of Chicago.
Where was On the Banks of the Seine, Bennecourt painted?
Scholarship Bennecourt is a village on the Seine near Bonnières, about 65 km west of Paris, where Monet and Camille stayed in 1868 at an inn much used by painters and writers (Zola set part of a novel there). The view is from the Bennecourt bank across to the hamlet of Gloton on the far side. The river and the villages survive, quiet and semi-rural; the picture records a spot on the bank rather than a marked viewpoint, and riverbank trees and buildings have changed.
What is in the painting?
Camille sits low on the near bank, framed by the trunk and hanging leaves of a tree at the left. The Seine is a broad, calm band across the middle, painted in horizontal strokes; on the far side, pale houses with red roofs among greenery, doubled almost exactly in the water. A small boat lies on the near shore. The light is bright and still.
Look closely
Camille under the tree
She sits back-turned on the bank, framed by a trunk and hanging leaves at the left.
The mirrored village
The pale red-roofed houses of Gloton are doubled almost exactly in the still river.
The drawn-up boat
A small rowing boat lies on the near shore beside her.
The blocky reflection
The water and its reflection are painted in bold horizontal and vertical strokes.
Analysis
Composition and technique
A seated back-turned figure at one side, the calm river across the centre, the far village and its reflection beyond.
Scholarship Monet uses the tree and the figure to anchor the left, then opens the rest to water and the mirrored far bank, painting the reflection in bold blocky strokes. The handling is broad and confident — an early, assured statement of the plein-air method.
History & provenance
The painting entered American collections and is in the Art Institute of Chicago.
Sources
- Art Institute of Chicago — collection entry for Claude Monet, ‘On the Bank of the Seine, Bennecourt’ (1868; oil on canvas, c. 82 × 100 cm)
- House, John, ‘Monet: Nature into Art’ (Yale University Press, 1986)
Related paintings
Régates à Argenteuil
1872
Monet's split scene-and-reflection on the Seine at Argenteuil a few years later.
Woman with a Parasol – Madame Monet and Her Son
1875
Monet's later open-air figure of Camille, 1875.
The Grand Canal
1908
Monet on the water again in Venice, 1908 — the reflection habit carried to its end.
Current display status
Currently on viewMore by Claude Monet
Impression, Sunrise
Woman with a Parasol – Madame Monet and Her Son
Houses on the Achterzaan
Also connected to Seine
