Claude Monet

Monet’s numerous trips abroad included three visits to Holland in 1871, 1874–75, and 1886. The forty or so paintings he produced there are devoted almost entirely to motifs reflective of Dutch national identity, including windmills, canals, and fields of colorful tulips. Boats at Zaandam is one of around two dozen medium-size paintings created by Monet during his four-month stay in the town of Zaandam near Amsterdam in the summer of 1871. While many of his Zaandam pictures are characterized by loose, sketchy brushwork, this painting shows a smooth, finely developed surface and clearly contoured objects. This approach was typical of Monet, who frequently opted for strikingly different textures even among individual works in his late series such as Grainstacks or Water Lilies. Both here and in the closely related composition The Port of Zaandam, the flapping boat pennants mark the direction of the wind at the moment of painting—a testimony to Monet’s interest in the almost photographic instantaneity (instantanéité) that would characterize his Impressionist work en plein air. After his return to France, his stay in the idyllic Dutch waterfront town probably influenced his decision to settle in Argenteuil, a popular resort on the Seine River with a picturesque environment similar to Zaandam.

In the four-volume catalogue raisonné of Monet’s paintings compiled by Daniel Wildenstein, Boats at Zaandam is listed as no. 189 (vol. 2, p. 87).

Daniel Zamani

Monet in Holland, Rijksmuseum Vincent van Gogh, Amsterdam, October 17, 1986–January 4, 1987, no. 2

Impressionism: The Art of Landscape, Museum Barberini, Potsdam, January 21–May 28, 2017

Claude Monet: The Truth of Nature, Denver Art Museum, October 20, 2019–February 2, 2020

Monet: Orte, Museum Barberini, Potsdam, February 22–July 19, 2020, no. 33

Impressionism: The Hasso Plattner Collection, Museum Barberini, Potsdam, from September 5, 2020

probably 1871, Galerie Durand-Ruel, Paris
1882, Ernest May, Paris
June 4, 1890, Galerie Georges Petit, Paris, Ernest May Collection, lot 45
Galerie Durand-Ruel, Paris, acquired at the above sale
1891, H. Vergé, Paris
n.d., Private collection, Zurich
n.d., Wildenstein New York or London
1986/88, Private collection, Japan
April 2001, Art trade, acquired from the above

Lionello Venturi, Les Archives de l’Impressionnisme, Paris/New York 1939, p. 253

M. Rostand, Quelques amateurs de l'époque impressionniste, Paris (École du Louvre, PhD Diss., unpublished) 1955, p. 305

Lionello Venturi, Les archives de l'impressionnisme: Lettres de Renoir, Monet, Pissarro, Sisley et autres; mémoires de Paul Durand-Ruel, New York 1968, p. 253

Daniel Wildenstein, Claude Monet: Biographie et catalogue raisonné, vol. 1, Lausanne 1974, no. 189, p. 56, 200, 427, ill. p. 201

Sophie Monneret, L'Impressionnisme et son époque, Paris 1979, p. 42

Monet in Holland, exh. cat. Rijksmuseum Vincent van Gogh, Amsterdam 1986, no. 2, p. 100, 104, 106, 145, ill. p. 106

Georges Jean-Aubry, Eugène Boudin, Neuchâtel 1987, p. 107

Anne Distel, Impressionism. The First Collectors, New York 1990, p. 222–230

Daniel Wildenstein, Claude Monet: Biographie et catalogue raisonné, vol. 5, Lausanne 1991, p. 25

Claude Monet 1840–1926, exh. cat. The Art Institute, Chicago 1995, p. 196

Paul Hayes Tucker, Claude Monet: Life and Art, New Haven 1995, p. 49

Daniel Wildenstein, Monet oder der Triumph des Impressionismus: Catalogue Raisonné. Werkverzeichnis, vol. 1, Cologne 1996, p. 91

Daniel Wildenstein, Monet: Catalogue Raisonné. Werkverzeichnis, vol. 2, Cologne 1996, no. 189, p. 87, ill. p. 86

Impressionism: The Art of Landscape, exh. cat. Museum Barberini, Potsdam 2017, no. 1, p. 92, ill. p. 93

Claude Monet: The Truth of Nature, exh. cat. Denver Art Museum, Denver 2019, no. 33, ill. p. 132/33

Monet: Orte, exh. cat. Museum Barberini, Potsdam 2020, no. 33, ill. p. 132/33