Claude Monet
Villas at Bordighera, 1884
On view
39 further works by Monet
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Oil on canvas, 61 x 74 cm
Signed and dated lower right: Claude Monet 84
Inv.-no. MB-Mon-15
On his first extended visit to the Riviera in 1884, Claude Monet was fascinated by the splendid colors and the exoticism of Mediterranean plants. In the north-Italien coastal town of Bordighera he painted the garden of the Villa Garnier, which the architect of the Paris Opera had constructed there for himself. By shifting the palm tree to the center of the picture, he understated the imposing opulence of the neighbouring Villa Etelinda to the left.
In the 1880s, Monet’s artistic excursions took him primarily to the Atlantic coast in the north of France, where he visited not only the port cities of his home region of Normandy but also the Belle-Île-sur-Mer in Brittany. Only on three occasions did he travel to the Mediterranean: during a two-week foray with Pierre-Auguste Renoir in December 1883, a three-month stay in Bordighera in 1884, and a four-month excursion to Antibes in 1888. The term “Côte d’Azur,” now a common name for the Riviera, was coined only in 1887 in a book by the poet Stéphen Liégeard—an example of how the emerging travel literature of the time promoted an image of the region as an exotic paradise and a southerly place of longing.
Monet was one of the first artists to embark upon painting campaigns in the Mediterranean and set up his easel on the coasts of the Riviera. From the 1890s on, younger painters such as the Neo-Impressionists Henri-Edmond Cross and Paul Signac followed in his footsteps, turning their gaze southward to discover the Riviera for a new generation of French landscape painting.
In the paintings from his stay in Bordighera in 1884, Monet concentrated on motifs characteristic of the idyllic coastal town such as gardens and their exotic vegetation with palm, olive, and citrus trees. This composition, which includes a view of the Città Alta, was painted from the garden of the Villa Garnier built by Parisian star architect Charles Garnier as a winter residence for his family between 1871 and 1873. The villa was also known for its elaborately cultivated garden, which boasted several hundred species of plants.
The foreground of Monet’s painting is devoted entirely to the luxuriant growth of palms and bushes; here, dominant green tones are enhanced by colored accents in yellow, pink, orange, red, and violet. On the left, the elegant tower of the neighbouring Villa Etelinda is the only part of the house visible in the painting; it finds its formal echo in the bell tower of the church of Santa Maria Maddalena, which serves to identify the silhouette of the old city in the background. The same church tower appears in three other views which Monet painted from the Collina dei Mostaccini, including the picture Bordighera, Italy, likewise found in the Hasso Plattner Collection.
In the four-volume catalogue raisonné of Monet’s paintings compiled by Daniel Wildenstein, the painting Villas at Bordighera is listed as no. 857a (vol. 2, p. 320).
Daniel Zamani
Claude Monet 1840–1926: A tribute to Daniel Wildenstein and Katia Granoff, Wildenstein, New York, April 27–June 15, 2007, no. 33
Impressionism: The Art of Landscape, Museum Barberini, Potsdam, January 21–May 28, 2017
Monet & Architecture, The National Gallery, London, April 9–July 29, 2018
Private Collections, Musée Marmottan Monet, Paris, September 13, 2018–February 10, 2019
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. 107
Impressionism: The Hasso Plattner Collection, Museum Barberini, Potsdam, from September 5, 2020
1884–1917, Léon-Pascal Monet, Rouen
and Maromme
1917–1979, Louise-Madeleine-Jeanne Monet, inherited from the above
n.d., Private collection
July 2007, Art trade, acquired from the above
Daniel Wildenstein, Claude Monet: Biographie et catalogue raisonné, vol. 5, Lausanne 1991, no. 2013, p. 10
Daniel Wildenstein, Monet: Catalogue Raisonné. Werkverzeichnis, vol. 2, Cologne 1996, no. 857a, p. 320, ill. p. 316
Christiane Éluère, Monet et la Riviera, Paris 2006, p. 70, 75, ill. p. 180
Claude Monet 1840–1926: A tribute to Daniel Wildenstein and Katia Granoff, exh. cat. Wildenstein, New York 2007, no. 33, p. 164, 199/200, 312, ill. p. 250
Impressionism: The Art of Landscape, exh. cat. Museum Barberini, Potsdam 2017, no. 89, p. 225, ill. p. 229
Monet & Architecture, exh. cat. The National Gallery, London 2018, no. 55, p. 66, 67, 208/9, ill. p. 66
Claude Monet: The Truth of Nature, exh. cat. Denver Art Museum, Denver 2019, no. 107, ill. p. 218 (detail), 225
Monet: Orte, exh. cat. Museum Barberini, Potsdam 2020, no. 107, p. 220, ill. p. 218 (detail), 225
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