Claude Monet

Monet had spent his childhood and youth in Le Havre, a city in Normandy with the second largest port in France, and he repeatedly depicted both the picturesque cliffs along the Atlantic coast and the port area of the economically ambitious region. Monet painted The Port of Le Havre, Night Effect in 1872 as a pendant to his seminal work Impression, Sunrise (1872, Musée Marmottan Monet, Paris), which attracted attention at the first Impressionist exhibition in 1874. At first glance, the motif of the industrial harbor with its artificial illumination is difficult to discern through the loose, sketch-like brushstrokes.

Historical photographs, as well as documentation related to the installation of the lighting in Le Havre, demonstrate that Monet rendered the contours of the port with topographical precision. The two glowing white dots in the upper left of the picture space represent masthead lights, which were required for steamships and could be seen from a great distance in fair weather, even in the dead of night. A number of red and green lights are also clearly visible, including one at the end of the southern landing stage as well as two side lights on moving boats. The evenly spaced white dots in a horizontal row in the background, however, represent the gas lanterns that had been installed beginning in 1869. The true subject of this stylistically radical work is the flickering of these ultra-modern lights and their reflection on the gently rippling water—unlike the contemporaneous Impression, Sunrise, where Monet explored the reddish shimmer of dawn spreading slowly over the port. Despite the seeming abstraction of their visual language, both works bear witness to the artist’s pursuit of an authentic rendering of the motif under specific conditions of weather and light.

Aside from this work, Monet’s oeuvre of over two thousand paintings includes only four other night scenes: the painting A Seascape, Shipping by Moonlight (ca. 1864, National Galleries of Scotland, Edinburgh) and three night views of Leicester Square in London, painted around 1900–01.

In the four-volume catalogue raisonné of Monet’s paintings compiled by Daniel Wildenstein, The Port of Le Havre, Night Effect is listed as no. 264 (vol. 2, p. 114). Like Impression, Sunrise, it is incorrectly dated there to 1873.

Daniel Zamani

Cl. Monet, Goupil Gallery, London, April–May 1889, no. XV

VIII. Jahrgang. I. Ausstellung. Kollektion Claude Monet, Paul Cassirer, Berlin, October 1–November 10, 1905, no. 15 (Nacht, 1873)

Exposition (du Havre), Hôtel de Ville, Cercle de l'art moderne, Le Havre, May–July 1906, no. 68

Hamburg, 1910

Exposition des Beaux-Arts, Düsseldorf, April–December 1913

From Realism to Symbolism: Whistler and His World, Wildenstein, New York, March 4–April 3, 1971; Museum of Art, Philadelphia, April 15–May 23, 1971, no. 105

Claude Monet: 1840–1926, The Art Institute of Chicago, July 22–November 26, 1995, no. 30

Claude Monet, Österreichische Galerie Belvedere, Vienna, March 14–June 16, 1996, no. 17

Impression: Painting Quickly in France 1860–1890, The National Gallery, London, November 1, 2000–January 28, 2001

Monet 1840–1926, Musée d'Orsay; Galeries nationales du Grand Palais, Paris, September 20, 2010–January 24, 2011

Impression, soleil levant: L'histoire vraie du chef-d'œuvre de Claude Monet, Musée Marmottan Monet, Paris, September 18, 2014–January 18, 2015, no. 38

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. 15

Nuits électriques, Musée d’art moderne André Malraux, Le Havre, July 3–November 1, 2020

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

May 1876 or January 1877, Georges Charpentier, Paris, purchased from the artist
1897, Galerie Durand-Ruel, Paris
1897, Edmond Décap, Paris
April 15, 1901, Hôtel Drouot, Paris, Décap Collection, lot 16
Galerie Durand-Ruel, Paris, acquired at the above sale
1915, P. Esterez
n.d., Coince
June 9, 1928, Hôtel Drouot, Paris, Coince Collection, lot 72
M. Cahen-Brisac, Paris, acquired at the above sale
May 26, 1950, Hôtel Drouot, Paris, lot 108
ca. 1968, Mr. and Mrs. William Falencki, USA
November 15, 1988, Christie’s, New York, lot 18
Private collection, acquired at the above sale
February 2016, purchased from a private collection

Hermann Springer, “Von bildender Kunst,” in Deutsche Tageszeitung 500 (October 24, 1905)

Oscar Reuterswärd, Monet: En konstnarhistorik, Stockholm 1948, ill. p. 67

From Realism to Symbolism: Whistler and His World, exh. cat. Wildenstein, New York 1971, ill. plate 39

Daniel Wildenstein, Claude Monet: Biographie et catalogue raisonné, vol. 1, Lausanne 1974, no. 264, p. 226, ill. p. 227

Daniel Wildenstein, Claude Monet: Biographie et catalogue raisonné, vol. 5, Lausanne 1991, p. 27

Claude Monet, exh. cat. Österreichische Galerie Belvedere, Vienna 1996, no. 17

Daniel Wildenstein, Monet: Catalogue Raisonné. Werkverzeichnis, vol. 2, Cologne 1996, no. 264, p. 114, ill. p. 114

Bernhard Echte and Walter Feilchenfeldt (Ed.): Kunstsalon Paul Cassirer: Die Ausstellungen 1905–1908, vol. 3, Wädenswil 2013, ill. p. 45

Impression, soleil levant: L'histoire vraie du chef-d'œuvre de Claude Monet, exh. cat. Musée Marmottan Monet, Paris 2014, no. 38, p. 74–76, ill. p. 75, 84

Impressionism: The Art of Landscape, exh. cat. Museum Barberini, Potsdam 2017, no. 11, ill. p. 103

Claude Monet: The Truth of Nature, exh. cat. Denver Art Museum, Denver 2019, no. 15, p. 81, ill. p. 97

Monet: Orte, exh. cat. Museum Barberini, Potsdam 2020, no. 15, p. 81, 256, ill. p. 97

Nuits électriques, exh. cat. Musée d’art moderne André Malraux, Le Havre 2020, no. 3, p. 28, ill. p. 30/31