Claude Monet began this canvas—one of three of the Petite Creuse—in April 1889 but only returned to it later that spring, by which time the landscape had changed considerably. The oak tree, for example, was sprouting leaves, obscuring the view he had already established. Rather than rework or restart the canvas to depict the current season, Monet hired workers to defoliate the tree so that he could re-create its earlier appearance.
Monet spent three months in the remote Creuse valley in central France beginning in early March 1889 after visiting the region for a few days with art critic Gustave Geffroy in February. Despite bouts of poor health and bad weather, he returned to Giverny having painted 24 canvases. These constituted the artist’s first planned and rigorously defined series of paintings.
Date
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Art Institute of Chicago, “Accessions and Loans,” Bulletin of the Art Institute of Chicago 16, 3 (May, 1922), p. 47.
Art Institute of Chicago, Handbook of Sculpture, Architecture, and Paintings, pt. 2, Paintings (Art Institute of Chicago, 1922), p. 68, cat. 836.
Art Institute of Chicago, A Guide to the Paintings in the Permanent Collection (Art Institute of Chicago, 1925), p. 147, cat. 836.
M. C., “Monets in the Art Institute,” Bulletin of the Art Institute of Chicago 19, 2 (Feb. 1925), p. 19.
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. 38, cat. 220.
Oscar Reuterswärd, Monet: En konstnärshistorik (Bonniers, 1948), p. 289.
Art Institute of Chicago, “Catalogue,” Art Institute of Chicago Quarterly 51, 2 (Apr. 1, 1957), p. 33.
Art Institute of Chicago, Paintings in the Art Institute of Chicago: A Catalogue of the Picture Collection (Art Institute of Chicago, 1961), p. 320.
Grace Seiberling, “The Evolution of an Impressionist,” in Paintings by Monet, ed. Susan Wise, exh. cat. (Art Institute of Chicago, 1975), p. 32.
Susan Wise, ed., Paintings by Monet, exh. cat. (Art Institute of Chicago, 1975), p. 140, cat. 83 (ill.).
Daniel Wildenstein, Claude Monet: Biographie et catalogue raisonné, vol. 3, Peintures, 1887–1898 (Bibliothèque des Arts, 1979), pp. 124; 125, cat. 1231 (ill.); 248, letters 975 and 976.
Robert Gordon and Andrew Forge, Monet (Abrams, 1983), pp. 126–27 (ill.), 291.
Charles F. Stuckey, ed., Monet: A Retrospective (Hugh Lauter Levin, 1985), pp. 138; 187, pl. 75.
Milwaukee Art Museum, 1888: Frederick Layton and His World, exh. cat. (Milwaukee Art Museum, 1988), pp. 124–25, cat. 45 (ill.).
Richard Kendall, ed., Monet by Himself: Paintings, Drawings, Pastels, Letters, trans. Bridget Strevens Romer (Macdonald Orbis, 1989), pp. 169 (ill.), 319.
Paul Hayes Tucker, Monet in the ’90s: The Series Paintings, exh. cat. (Museum of Fine Arts, Boston/Yale University Press, 1989), pp. 47; 48, pl. 11; 50; 55; 295, cat. 8.
Martha Kapos, ed., The Impressionists: A Retrospective (Hugh Lauter Levin/Macmillan, 1991), p. 333, pl. 105.
Steven Z. Levine, Monet, Narcissus, and Self-Reflection: The Modernist Myth of the Self (University of Chicago Press, 1994), pp. 103, 114.
Marianne Alphant, Claude Monet: Une vie dans le paysage (Hazan, 1993), p. 461.
Andrew Forge, Monet, Artists in Focus (Art Institute of Chicago, 1995), pp. 39; 41 (detail); 42–43; 84, pl. 13.
John Russell Taylor, Claude Monet: Impressions of France, from Le Havre to Giverny (Collins & Brown, 1995), pp. 7 (ill.), 101, 156.
Charles F. Stuckey, with the assistance of Sophia Shaw, Claude Monet, 1840–1926, exh. cat. (Art Institute of Chicago/Thames & Hudson, 1995), p. 113, cat. 92 (ill.).
Daniel Wildenstein, Monet: Catalogue raisonné/Werkverzeichnis, vol. 3, Nos. 969–1595 (Taschen/Wildenstein Institute, 1996), pp. 469–70, cat. 1231 (ill.).
Genevieve Morgan, ed., Monet: The Artist Speaks (Collins, 1996), pp. 55 (ill.), 95.
Carla Rachman, Monet (Phaidon, 1997), pp. 202–03, fig. 133; 204.
Art Institute of Chicago, Impressionism and Post-Impressionism in the Art Institute of Chicago, selected by James N. Wood (Art Institute of Chicago/Hudson Hills, 2000), p. 130 (ill.).
Art Institute of Chicago, Treasures from the Art Institute of Chicago, selected by James N. Wood, commentaries by Debra N. Mancoff (Art Institute of Chicago/Hudson Hills, 2000), p. 110 (ill.).
Simonella Condemi and Andrew Forge, Claude Monet: La poesia della luce; Sette capolavori dell’Art Institute di Chicago a Palazzo Pitti, exh. cat. (Giunti Gruppo, 1999), pp. 30–31 (ill.).
Eric M. Zafran, “Monet in America,” in Wildenstein and Co., Claude Monet (1840–1926): A Tribute to Daniel Wildenstein and Katia Granoff, exh. cat. (Wildenstein, 2007), p. 143, fig. 62a.
Gerhard Finckh, “Faszination Monet,” in Claude Monet, ed. Gerhard Finckh, exh. cat. (Von der Heydt-Museum, 2009), p. 23 (ill.).
Richard R. Brettell, Paul Hayes Tucker, and Natalie H. Lee, The Robert Lehman Collection, Nineteenth- and Twentieth-Century Paintings, vol. 3 (Metropolitan Museum of Art, New York/Princeton University Press, 2009), p. 221, fig. 5.
Gloria Groom and Douglas Druick, with the assistance of Dorota Chudzicka and Jill Shaw, The Age of French Impressionism: Masterpieces from the Art Institute of Chicago (Art Institute of Chicago/Yale University Press, 2010; reprinted 2013), p. 121, cat. 60 (ill.).
John House, “Le sujet chez Monet,” in Réunion des Musées Nationaux, Claude Monet, 1840–1926, exh. cat. (Réunion des Musées Nationaux/Musée d’Orsay, 2010), p. 25.
Réunion des Musées Nationaux, Claude Monet, 1840–1926, exh. cat. (Réunion des Musées Nationaux/Musée d’Orsay, 2010), p. 217, cat. 83 (ill.).
Richard Thomson, “Un naturalism d’émotivité, 1881–1891,” in Réunion des Musées Nationaux, Claude Monet, 1840–1926, exh. cat. (Réunion des Musées Nationaux/Musée d’Orsay, 2010), pp. 32–33 (detail).
Richard Thomson, “À Belle-Île 1886; Dans la Creuse, 1889,” in Réunion des Musées Nationaux, Claude Monet, 1840–1926, exh. cat. (Réunion des Musées Nationaux/Musée d’Orsay, 2010), pp. 210, 211.
Pierre Buvat, Sur les pas de Claude Monet à Fresselines, février-mai 1889: “De la perce-neige à l’églantine” (Nouvelle Picarle, 2011), (ill.).
Christophe Rameix, Impressionnisme et postimpressionnisme dans la Vallée de la Creuse: The Crozant School, trans. Alain Decotigny (Christian Pirot/La Simarre, 2012), pp. 49 (ill.), 142.
Gloria Groom, et. al. Monet and Chicago, exh. Cat. (Chicago: Art Institute, 2020), 28 fig. 7, 90 cat. 49, 136-37.
Art Institute of Chicago, “A Century of Progress”: Loan Exhibition of Paintings and Sculpture for 1934, June 1–Oct. 31, 1934, cat. 220.
University of Chicago, Lexington Hall, Nov. 17–Dec. 17, 1952, no cat.
Park Forest (Ill.) Art Center, Mar. 25–Apr. 22, 1956, no cat.
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. 83.
Milwaukee Art Museum, 1888: Frederick Layton and His World, April 8–August 28, 1988, cat. 45 (ill.).
Boston, Museum of Fine Arts, Monet in the ’90s: The Series Paintings, February 7–April 29, 1990, cat. 8 (ill.); Art Institute of Chicago, May 19–August 12, 1990; London, Royal Academy of Arts, September 7–December 9, 1990.
Art Institute of Chicago, Claude Monet, 1840–1926, July 22–Nov. 26, 1995, cat. 92 (ill.).
Florence, Sala Bianca di Palazzo Pitti, Claude Monet: La poesia della luce; Sette capolavori dell’Art Institue di Chicago a Palazzo Pitti, June 2–Aug. 29, 1999, no cat. no. (ill.).
Paris, Galeries Nationales, Grand Palais, Claude Monet, 1840–1926, Sept. 22, 2010–Jan. 24, 2011, cat. 83 (ill.).
Art Institute of Chicago, Monet and Chicago, September 5, 2020-June 14, 2021, cat. 49.
Potter Palmer, (d. 1902) Chicago [per Wildenstein 1996; Tucker 1989, p. 55 suggests that the painting was purchased by Berthe Palmer, not Potter Palmer]; by descent to the Potter Family, Chicago; given to the Art Institute of Chicago, 1922.
Wildenstein, Claude Monet, biographie et catalogue raisonné, 1979 1231
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