The Road in Front of Saint-Simeon Farm in Winter
The snowy lane past the Ferme Saint-Siméon above Honfleur — the painters' inn where Monet, Boudin and Jongkind gathered.
Honfleur
The painting depicts a real landscape or cityscape. The precise viewpoint the artist used may be unknown, so the marker shows the general area.
The Road in Front of Saint-Simeon Farm in Winter — at a glance
- Artist
- Claude Monet (1840–1926)
- Year
- c. 1867
- Movement
- Impressionism (early)
- Place
- The lane by the Ferme Saint-Siméon, above Honfleur, Normandy
- Viewpoint
- The lane outside the painters' inn — the building survives (much enlarged, now a hotel); the lane remains, built up
- Medium
- Oil on canvas
- Dimensions
- c. 52 × 73 cm
- Now at
- Musée d'Orsay, Paris
Overview
This small winter landscape by Claude Monet, painted about 1867, shows the country lane running past the Ferme Saint-Siméon, above the port of Honfleur, under snow: a bare hedge and trees, farm buildings, a figure or two, ruts in the white road. It is oil on canvas, about 52 by 73 cm, and it hangs in the Musée d'Orsay, Paris.
Where was The Road in Front of Saint-Simeon Farm in Winter painted?
Scholarship The Ferme Saint-Siméon was a farm and modest inn on the wooded slope of the Côte de Grâce above Honfleur, run by ‘Mère Toutain’, where from the 1850s Eugène Boudin, Johan Barthold Jongkind, the young Monet and others stayed and painted the estuary and the surrounding country — a cradle of open-air landscape painting. The building survives, greatly enlarged, as a luxury hotel and restaurant; the lane and the wooded slope remain, though built up, so the setting can be broadly located.
What is in the painting?
The lane runs across and back, its surface white and rutted. A leafless hedge and trees line one side; low farm buildings with snow on their roofs stand among them; a small figure walks the road. The light is grey and even, the colour a narrow range of white, grey-brown and dark hedge.
Look closely
The rutted white lane
Wheel ruts break the fresh snow on the road past the farm.
The bare hedge
A leafless hedge and trees line one side of the lane.
The snow-topped farm
Low farm buildings with snow on their roofs stand among the trees — the Ferme Saint-Siméon.
Analysis
Composition and technique
A plain lane between hedge and buildings, painted in close greys and browns for a muffled winter light.
Scholarship Monet keeps the design simple and horizontal, and concentrates on the low-contrast atmosphere of a snowy overcast day, laying the snow, hedge and roofs in broad, quick touches.
History & provenance
The painting is in the Musée d'Orsay, Paris.
Sources
- Musée d'Orsay, Paris — collection entry for Claude Monet, ‘La Route devant la ferme Saint-Siméon en hiver’ (c. 1867)
- Ferme Saint-Siméon, Honfleur — history of the painters' inn
Related paintings
More by Claude Monet
Impression, Sunrise
Woman with a Parasol – Madame Monet and Her Son
Houses on the Achterzaan
Also connected to Honfleur
