Forced indoors by inclement fall weather, Claude Monet painted Boats on the Beach at Étretat and The Departure of the Boats, Étretat while looking out the window of his room at the Hôtel Blanquet. The two form a pair that share a palette, subject, and vantage point. In one of his daily letters to his companion and future wife, Alice Hoschedé, dated November 24, 1885, Monet described first Boats on the Beach and then Departure of the Boats: “In the afternoon, I worked in my room on my caloges [retired fishing boats covered with tarred planks and used for storage] in the rain, then I attempted to do, always through the window, a picture of the boats departing.”
Monet centered each composition on the boats, combining pastel blues, pinks, purples, and greens to render wet surfaces. The brightly colored hulls of beached crafts lend relative scale to the structures in Boats on the Beach, and the groups of figures at the water’s edge, composed of quick, gestural strokes, register human activity in Departure of the Boats. Monet purposefully arrived well after tourist season, so it is unclear whether he observed the fashionably dressed women at left or rather inserted them as a foil to the local fishermen at right.
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Art Institute of Chicago, Handbook of Sculpture, Architecture, and Paintings, pt. 2, Paintings (Art Institute of Chicago, 1922), p. 68, cat. 832.
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Art Institute of Chicago, A Guide to the Paintings in the Permanent Collection (Art Institute of Chicago, 1925), pp. 63 (ill.); 146, cat. 832.
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Art Institute of Chicago, A Guide to the Paintings in the Permanent Collection (Art Institute of Chicago, 1932), pp. 60 (ill.); 164, cat. 22.428.
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Daniel Catton Rich, “Französische Impressionisten im Art Institute zu Chicago,” Pantheon: Monatsschrift für freunde und sammler der kunst 11, 3 (Mar. 1933), pp. 75 (ill.), 77. Translated by C. C. H. Drechsel as “French Impressionists in the Art Institute of Chicago,” Pantheon/Cicerone (Mar. 1933), p. 18.
Art Institute of Chicago, Catalogue of “A Century of Progress”: Exhibition of Paintings and Sculpture, 1934, ed. Daniel Catton Rich, exh. cat. (Art Institute of Chicago, 1934), p. 37, cat. 211.
“Fourteen Notable Modern Paintings,” Fortune 9 (Jan. 1934), p. 33 (ill.).
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George Slocombe, “Giver of Light,” Coronet (Mar. 1938), p. 21 (ill.).
Lionello Venturi, Les archives de l’impressionnisme: Lettres de Renoir, Monet, Pissarro, Sisley et autres; Mémoires de Paul Durand-Ruel; Documents, vol. 1 (Durand-Ruel, 1939), pp. 74, 347.
Charles Fabens Kelley, “Boats in Winter Quarters: A Painting by Claude Monet,” Christian Science Monitor, Oct. 7, 1941, (ill.).
Toledo Museum of Art and Art Gallery of Toronto, The Spirit of Modern France: An Essay on Painting in Society, 1745–1946, exh. cat. (Rous and Mann [1946]), cat. 49.
Oscar Reuterswärd, Monet: En konstnärshistorik (Bonniers, 1948), opp. p. 160 (ill.); p. 284.
Lionello Venturi, Impressionisti e Simbolisti: Da Manet a Lautrec … (Del Turco, 1950), pp. 61; 211; fig. 58. Translated by Francis Steegmuller as Impressionists and Symbolists: Manet, Degas, Monet, Pissarro, Sisley, Renoir, Cezanne, Seurat, Gauguin, van Gogh, Toulouse-Lautrec (Charles Scribner’s Sons, 1950), pp. 63–64; fig. 58.
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Art Institute of Chicago, Paintings in the Art Institute of Chicago: A Catalogue of the Picture Collection (Art Institute of Chicago, 1961), p. 320.
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Daniel Wildenstein, Claude Monet: Biographie et catalogue raisonné, vol. 2, Peintures, 1882–1886 (Bibliothèque des Arts, 1979), pp. 174; 175, cat. 1025 (ill.); 268, letters 628, 629.
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Richard R. Brettell, French Impressionists (Art Institute of Chicago/Abrams, 1987), pp. 79, 81 (ill.), 118.
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Robert L. Herbert, Monet on the Normandy Coast: Tourism and Painting, 1867–1886 (Yale University Press, 1994), pp. 103; 107, fig. 116; 114.
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Art Institute of Chicago, “A Century of Progress”: Loan Exhibition of Paintings and Sculpture, May 23–Nov. 1, 1933, cat. 293.
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Art Institute of Chicago, The Paintings of Claude Monet, Apr. 1–June 15, 1957, no cat. no.
Art Institute of Chicago, Paintings by Monet, Mar. 15–May 11, 1975, cat. 17 (ill.).
Highland Park (Ill.), Neison Harris, May 29, 1984–May 13, 1985, no cat.
Tokyo, Seibu Museum of Art, Shikago bijutsukan insho-ha ten [The Impressionist tradition: Masterpieces from the Art Institute of Chicago], Oct. 18–Dec. 17, 1985, cat. 43 (ill.); Fukuoka Art Museum, Jan. 5–Feb. 2, 1986; Kyoto Municipal Museum of Art, Mar. 4–April 13, 1986.
Art Institute of Chicago, Seurat and the Making of “La Grande Jatte,” June 19–Sept. 19, 2004, cat. 98 (ill.).
Art Institute of Chicago, Monet and Chicago, September 5, 2020-June 14, 2021, cat. 35.
Seattle Art Museum, Monet at Étretat, July 1-October 17, 2021, no cat. no.
The artist (d. 1926); sold to Durand-Ruel, Paris, December 21, 1892, for 6,000 francs [this and the following per Durand-Ruel, Paris, stock book for 1891–1901 (no. 2548, as Caloges d’Etretat), as confirmed by Paul-Louis Durand-Ruel and Flavie Durand-Ruel, Durand-Ruel Archives, to the Art Institute of Chicago, Feb. 5, 2013, curatorial object file]; sold to Potter Palmer, Chicago, Dec. 21, 1892, for 6,000 francs; by descent to Bertha Honoré Palmer (wife of Potter Palmer), Chicago;
on deposit from Bertha Honoré Palmer, Chicago, to Durand-Ruel, New York, Mar. 17, 1909–May 9, 1911 [per Durand-Ruel, New York, deposit book for 1894–1925 (no. 7535, as Caloges d’Etretat, 1885), as confirmed by Paul-Louis Durand-Ruel and Flavie Durand-Ruel, Durand-Ruel Archives, to the Art Institute of Chicago, Feb. 5, 2013, curatorial object file]; by descent to the Potter Family, Chicago; given to the Art Institute of Chicago, 1922.
Wildenstein, Claude Monet, biographie et catalogue raisonné, 1979 1025
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