Arrival of the Normandy Train, Gare Saint-Lazare[1]
1877
Oil on canvas; 60.3 × 80.2 cm (23 3/4 × 31 1/2 in.)
Signed and dated: Claude Monet 77 (lower left corner, name in dark purplish-brown paint, year in dark reddish-brown paint)
The Art Institute of Chicago, Mr. and Mrs. Martin A. Ryerson Collection, 1933.1158
Monet’s Station
By the end of 1876 Monet had grown restless in Argenteuil, the picturesque suburb northwest of Paris that had served as his home and the setting for many of his paintings since 1871.[2] With the financial assistance of his independently wealthy friend, the artist Gustave Caillebotte, Monet rented a ground-floor space at 17, rue Moncey, in Paris to use as his studio.[3] The apartment was conveniently located just a few blocks from the Gare Saint-Lazare, the terminus for the Normandy rail line that serviced Argenteuil. Although Monet continued to live and work in Argenteuil, he began to commute into Paris more often, with the station connecting his home life and the business of art found in the city.1
The Saint-Lazare train station was, moreover, equidistant from Argenteuil and the Château de Rottembourg, in Montgeron, where the department store owner and art collector Ernest Hoschedé and his wife Alice owned a country house. By the end of 1876, Monet was finishing a commission for Hoschedé for four large, decorative panels inspired by the château and the grounds on the property.[4] This project required an extended stay, so Monet likely made periodic trips back to Argenteuil and Paris.[5] It may well have been that the gare took on added significance during this time as the midpoint between Monet’s work on an important commission for Hoschedé for a generous patron and his own family life, fraught with financial strain and concern over his wife Camille’s declining health.2
Following the interlude at Rottembourg, Monet began a series of works featuring the Gare Saint-Lazare. Monet had not painted in Paris for several years, and his gradual shift of focus toward the capital coincided with new approaches as well as fresh subject matter.[6] The resolutely urban cityscape was a bracing antidote to the picturesque settings of Argenteuil, which had dominated his oeuvre since his move there. The Gare Saint-Lazare was a bustling hub, then the capital’s largest and busiest station. First opened in 1837, the station had recently been expanded by the newly constructed Pont de l’Europe, an engineering marvel consisting of interlocking bridges stretching over the railway yard, which allowed for increased traffic.[7] A starkly modern addition to the Parisian landscape when it was completed in 1868, the bridge inspired Caillebotte’s large-scale painting Le Pont de l’Europe (fig. 16.1), which would be exhibited along with Arrival of the Normandy Train, Gare Saint-Lazare, in April 1877 at the third Impressionist exhibition.[8]3
Fig. 16.1
Gustave Caillebotte (French, 1848–1894). Le Pont de l’Europe, 1877. Oil on canvas; 124.7 × 180.6 cm (49 1/8 × 71 1/8 in.). Association des Amis du Petit Palais, Geneva. The Bridgeman Art Library.
Monet’s Premeditated “Impressionist” Work
Having set himself up in his Paris studio in January 1877, Monet immediately sought official permission to paint inside the station.[9] He seems to have begun work at once upon receiving a favorable reply from the director of the Chemins de Fer de l’Ouest. The conditions inside required dramatically different working methods, and this may account for why he executed pencil sketches in sketchbooks (or carnets), which was unusual for Monet, as he devised solutions to the difficulties involved in capturing the continual bustle of the station.[10] The Art Institute’s painting retains a sketch-like, improvisational, and graphic quality within the overall balanced and highly calculated composition; this is particularly evident in comparison with a related drawing (fig. 16.2 [D153]).[11]4
Fig. 16.2
Claude Monet (French, 1840–1926). Within the Gare Saint-Lazare. View of the Normandy Line (carnet 2, 14), 1877. Pencil on paper; 24 × 31 cm (9 7/16 × 12 3/16 in.). Musée Marmottan Monet, Paris, 5130.
A central lamppost aligns exactly with the apex of the building’s glass canopy, bifurcating the composition in much the same way as the green streetlight does in Caillebotte’s monumental Paris Street; Rainy Day (fig. 16.3), which Monet would almost certainly have known was in progress.[12] With the exception of these topographical elements, however, there is no narrative detail in this liminal space. Monet expressed the breakdown of industrial materials under the weightlessness of clouds and steam in a variety of techniques that ranged from leaving the primed canvas exposed (fig. 16.4) to wet-on-wet applications of dense layers of pigment on top of painted surfaces (fig. 16.5 and fig. 16.6; see also Technical Report).
5
Fig. 16.3
Gustave Caillebotte (French, 1848–1894). Paris Street; Rainy Day, 1877. Oil on canvas; 212.2 × 276.2 cm (3 1/2 × 108 3/4 in.). The Art Institute of Chicago, Charles H. and Mary F. S. Worcester Collection, 1964.336.
Fig. 16.4
Photomicrograph of Monet’s Arrival of the Normandy Train, Gare Saint-Lazare (1877) showing areas of exposed ground. The Art Institute of Chicago, 1933.1158.
Fig. 16.5
Photomicrograph of Monet’s Arrival of the Normandy Train, Gare Saint- Lazare (1877) showing wet-on-wet paint application in the train engine. The Art Institute of Chicago, 1933.1158.
Fig. 16.6
Photomicrograph of Monet’s Arrival of the Normandy Train, Gare Saint-Lazare (1877) showing the top part of a lantern. The Art Institute of Chicago, 1933.1158.
In his initial lay-in Monet carefully sketched in the roofline for Arrival of the Normandy Train, leaving in reserve an area for the billows of steam (fig. 16.7). In situ he would have observed the effects of steam against the panes of glass overhead.[13] For the iron armature of the ceiling, seen more precisely delineated in both the version at the Musée d’Orsay (fig. 16.8 [W438]) and the Fogg Art Museum version (fig. 16.9 [W439]), the artist applied narrow individual strokes of blue and green through still-wet paint (fig. 16.10).[14] Although the gridwork is less visible on the right side of the final composition, the infrared reflectography (IRR) image reveals that it was a part of the earlier conception and was ultimately painted over with thick whitish-gray brushstrokes suggesting smoke and steam (fig. 16.11).6
Fig. 16.7
Infrared (1.5–1.7 µm) and natural-light overlay detail of Monet’s Arrival of the Normandy Train, Gare Saint-Lazare (1877) showing smoke and the roof of the train station at right. The Art Institute of Chicago, 1933.1158. Interactive Image.
Fig. 16.8
Claude Monet (French, 1840–1926). Interior View of the Gare Saint-Lazare; The Auteuil Line, 1877. Oil on canvas; 75 × 105 cm (29 9/16 × 41 3/8 in.). Musée d’Orsay, Paris, RF2775. © RMN-Grand Palais/Art Resource, NY.
Fig. 16.9
Claude Monet (French, 1840–1926). Gare Saint-Lazare: Arrival of a Train, 1877. Oil on canvas; 82 × 101 cm (32 5/16 × 39 3/4 in.). Fogg Art Museum, Harvard University Art Museums, Cambridge, Mass. Bridgeman Images.
Fig. 16.10
Detail of Monet’s Arrival of the Normandy Train, Gare Saint-Lazare (1877) showing the narrow gridlines just below the peak of the roof. The Art Institute of Chicago, 1933.1158.
Fig. 16.11
Infrared (1.5–1.7 µm) and natural-light overlay detail of Monet’s Arrival of the Normandy Train, Gare Saint-Lazare (1877) showing changes made to the gridwork below the peak of the roofline on the right side. The Art Institute of Chicago, 1933.1158. Interactive Image.
The art historian Juliet Wilson-Bareau has described Monet’s group of twelve Gare paintings as varying in technique, composition, and canvases or supports. She categorizes them as works executed on previously used canvases; those that appear as single-session sketches, those painted entirely on the motif, and ones “that seem to hover on the borderline between initial sketch and work in progress.”[15] As mentioned, the Art Institute’s painting is sketch-like, yet the application of paint wet-on-wet and wet-over-dry suggests a process that lasted several sessions (see Technical Report). The picture was probably worked both on site and in the studio, given the subtle but significant changes Monet made on seemingly random areas of the composition. He fiddled with elements on the left, such as the tracks, and altered the amount of detail he wanted to include. The rails were added first, and they continue underneath the pentimento of a whirling pattern of strokes at the foot of the train at left that were painted over; these may have represented the circular front of a train engine (fig. 16.12).
7
Fig. 16.12
Infrared (1.5–1.7 µm) and natural-light overlay detail of Monet’s Arrival of the Normandy Train, Gare Saint-Lazare (1877) showing changes seen at bottom left above signature, and previous forms painted out. The Art Institute of Chicago, 1933.1158. Interactive Image.
Although hardly decipherable in the traditional sense, the workers milling about on the left and the people waiting on the platforms before boarding time are legible. Dark strokes of paint with daubs of reddish-brown suggest flesh sometimes beneath hats and hair (fig. 16.13 and fig. 16.14). Monet indicates gender and style only through silhouettes made up of a few economical strokes, with a male figure in the left foreground sporting a recognizable hairstyle and garments as the lone exception (fig. 16.15). Monet here, as in so many of his post-1860s figure paintings, was drawn to distilling the sensation of modern life in action rather than focusing on the individual, a goal that distinguished him from Realist writers and painters, such as Honoré Daumier, for whom the motif of the train represented a social experiment in which different classes were forced to interact. Monet’s indifference to specific individuals is clear in the Chicago version: the intangibles of urgency, deadlines, and speed are visualized with urgent strokes to denote crowds of people poised to move, while the billowing clouds, in shades of bluish-gray, give tangible shape to the suggestion of smoke, steam, and sky suspended overhead.
8
Fig. 16.13
Detail of Monet’s Arrival of the Normandy Train, Gare Saint-Lazare (1877) showing people waiting on the platform at right. The Art Institute of Chicago, 1933.1158.
Fig. 16.14
Photomicrograph of Monet’s Arrival of the Normandy Train, Gare Saint-Lazare (1877) showing the reddish-brown strokes used to suggest the faces of the people in the middle ground, to the left of the tracks. The Art Institute of Chicago, 1933.1158.
Third Impressionist Exhibition
At the third Impressionist exhibition, held in April 1877, Monet showed the present painting, along with six other versions of the Gare Saint-Lazare.[16] Émile Zola commended Monet for having successfully expressed the excitement and energy of the modern train station, “the rumble of trains surging forward, . . . the torrents of smoke winding through vast engine sheds.”[17] The group as a whole received largely positive reviews,[18] with one critic singling out the Chicago version as “excellent,” for imparting “an accurate, clear impressionism,” and for being “unpretentious and well done.”[19]9
Of the seven Saint-Lazare paintings identified as having been exhibited in 1877, Arrival of the Normandy Train, Gare Saint-Lazare bears a more detailed title, specifying both the railway line and its direction. Although not the largest or most finished of those included, it was probably the most “legible to a nineteenth-century viewer of oil sketches.”[20] For this composition, Monet positioned himself inside the station where the Normandy linecs pull in, which was also the side closest to the rue d’Amsterdam, the street leading to the boulevard de Clichy and to his studio on the rue Moncey (fig. 16.16).[21]
10
Fig. 16.16
Map of the area around the Gare Saint-Lazare. Engraved by L. Poulmaire. Nouveau plan de Paris divisé en 20 arrondissements (Librairie Théodore Lefèvre, c. 1890). 61 × 88 cm (24 × 34 5/8 in.). Map Collection, University of Chicago.
The nearest analogue in viewpoint and handling to the Art Institute’s painting is the version now in the National Gallery, London, The Gare St-Lazare (1877, fig. 16.17 [W441]), which was not exhibited in 1877.[22] Both show the arched bays of the parcel depot beyond the roof on the rue d’Amsterdam side of the station; the vaulted rooflines and tracks are seen in a contemporary photograph (fig. 16.18).[23] And both versions are closely related to a drawing from a sketchbook that Monet kept at this time (fig. 16.2).
11
Fig. 16.17
Claude Monet (French, 1840–1926). The Gare St-Lazare, 1877. Oil on canvas; 54.3 × 73.6 cm (21 3/8 × 29 in.). National Gallery, London, England; NG6479. © National Gallery, London/Art Resource, NY.
Fig. 16.18
View of the Western Region Goods Sheds, 1850. Photograph by Roger Viollet/Getty Images.
Monet had realized some success with the gare paintings before the start of the third Impressionist exhibition. Three of the seven had already been sold to collectors, a fact advertised by the inclusion of their names in the accompanying catalogue.[24] By March 1877, he had sold at least four paintings to collectors, including Ernest Hoschedé, who acquired the Chicago painting and two others (Arrival at Saint-Lazare Station [Fogg Art Museum (W439)] and Tracks Coming Out of Saint-Lazare Station [private collection (W445)]), and Georges de Bellio, who purchased The Pont de l’Europe, Saint-Lazare Station (W442) and who would later acquire the Chicago painting as well.[25] Although the group of Saint-Lazare canvases lacks the temporal and iconographical cohesiveness of the series Monet would begin in the 1890s, they mark a new direction for his work that was unprecedented in the history of modern art. Novel too was Monet’s decision to exhibit the Gare paintings together as a group, presaging the exhibition strategies he would use two decades later with his series Stacks of Wheat (cats. 27–32).
Gloria Groom, with research assistance by Genevieve Westerby
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Technical Summary
Claude Monet’s Arrival of the Normandy Train, Gare Saint-Lazare was painted on a pre-primed, no. 25 landscape (paysage) linen canvas. The painting appears to retain its original stretcher. The off-white ground consists of two layers. The painting was built up from a broadly applied lay-in that blocked out the main compositional forms, leaving space in reserve for the large cloud of steam and the skylight in the station roof. Throughout the painting, the brushwork remains open and the compositional forms sketchily rendered. Areas of exposed ground and canvas texture remain visible throughout and are juxtaposed with more fluid, smooth paint applications and areas of thicker brushstrokes and impasto, creating a varied surface texture. Most of the compositional elements were executed with concise strokes of the brush, often worked wet-in-wet. The artist originally included a grid of iron tie rods underneath the right side of the station roof, creating symmetry with the left side. These were subsequently covered by the puffs of gray steam coming from the locomotive below. Painted-over brushwork in the lower left corner, visualized with the aid of infrared reflectography, indicates that the artist made a change in this area of the composition; however, the nature of the underlying form is unclear.[26]13
Multilayer Interactive Image Viewer
The multilayer interactive image viewer is designed to facilitate the viewer’s exploration and comparison of the technical images (fig. 16.19).[27]
14
Fig. 16.19
Monet’s Arrival of the Normandy Train, Gare Saint-Lazare (1877). The Art Institute of Chicago, 1933.1158. Interactive image.
Signature
Signature/Stamp
Signed and dated: Claude Monet 77 (lower left corner, name in dark purplish-brown paint, year in dark reddish-brown paint[28]) (fig. 16.20, fig. 16.21, fig. 16.22). The underlying paint was dry when the signature and date were applied.
15
Fig. 16.20
Detail of the signature of Monet’s Arrival of the Normandy Train, Gare Saint-Lazare (1877). The Art Institute of Chicago, 1933.1158.
Fig. 16.21
Photomicrograph of the signature of Monet’s Arrival of the Normandy Train, Gare Saint-Lazare (1877) showing the dark purplish-brown paint. The Art Institute of Chicago, 1933.1158.
Fig. 16.22
Photomicrograph of the date of Monet’s Arrival of the Normandy Train, Gare Saint-Lazare (1877) showing the dark reddish-brown paint. The Art Institute of Chicago, 1933.1158.
Structure and Technique
Support
Canvas
Flax (commonly known as linen).[29]16
Standard format
The dimensions correspond closely to a no. 25 landscape (paysage) standard-size stretcher (60 × 81 cm).[30]17
Weave
Plain weave. Average thread count (standard deviation): 15.7V (0.4) × 19.2H (1.1) threads/cm.[31] The vertical threads were determined to correspond to the warp and the horizontal threads to the weft. No weave match was found with other Monet paintings analyzed for this project.18
Canvas characteristics
There is strong, fairly even cusping along the right edge; cusping on the other sides is absent or very slight.19
Stretching
Current stretching: Dates to aqueous lining applied prior to acquisition of painting in 1933 (see Conservation History). The tacks, spaced approximately 1–8.5 cm apart, do not correspond to the cusping along the right edge.[32] The tacking margins could not be fully examined due to the presence of paper edge strips.20
Original stretching: Spacing of the original tacks could not be determined due to the presence of paper edge strips.21
Stretcher/strainer
Current stretcher: The current stretcher may be original to the painting. It consists of five members, including a vertical crossbar, with butt-ended, mortise and tenon joints and ten keys (fig. 16.23).[33] Dimensions: stretcher bar width, 6.5 cm; crossbar width, 6.0 cm; depth, 1.5 cm.
22
Fig. 16.23
Image of the back of Monet’s Arrival of the Normandy Train, Gare Saint-Lazare (1877) showing the stretcher. The Art Institute of Chicago, 1933.1158.
Original stretcher: See above.[34]23
Manufacturer’s/supplier’s marks
None observed in current examination or documented in previous examinations.24
Preparatory Layers
Sizing
In UV light, evidence of a light blue fluorescence between the canvas and the ground suggests the presence of an organic layer, possibly glue sizing (fig. 16.24).[35]
25
Fig. 16.24
Photomicrograph in UV light of Monet’s Arrival of the Normandy Train, Gare Saint-Lazare (1877) showing a light-blue fluorescence below the off-white ground layer. Original magnification: 500×. The Art Institute of Chicago, 1933.1158.
Ground application/texture
The ground extends to the edges of all four tacking margins, indicating that the canvas was cut from a larger piece of primed fabric, which was probably commercially prepared. Cross-sectional analysis indicates that two layers are present. The lower layer ranges from 25 to 100 µm in thickness. The upper layer ranges from 100 to 125 µm in thickness (fig. 16.25, fig. 16.26).[36] Numerous tiny bubble holes were observed in the ground layer where it is exposed at the edges and also throughout the composition where the paint was thinly applied (fig. 16.27).
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Fig. 16.25
Photomicrograph of a cross section of the ground of Monet’s Arrival of the Normandy Train, Gare Saint-Lazare (1877) showing two distinct layers. Original magnification: 200×. The Art Institute of Chicago, 1933.1158.
Fig. 16.26
Backscattered electron (BSE) image of a cross section of the ground of Monet’s Arrival of the Normandy Train, Gare Saint-Lazare (1877) showing two distinct layers. The Art Institute of Chicago, 1933.1158.
Fig. 16.27
Photomicrograph of the sky in Monet’s Arrival of the Normandy Train, Gare Saint-Lazare (1877) showing bubble holes in the ground layer. The Art Institute of Chicago, 1933.1158.
Color
When the painting surface is observed microscopically, only the upper ground layer is visible. It has a warm, off-white color, with some dark (possibly black) and red pigment particles (fig. 16.28).
27
Fig. 16.28
Photomicrograph of the bottom edge of Monet’s Arrival of the Normandy Train, Gare Saint-Lazare (1877) showing the warm, off-white ground exposed at the edge of the painting. The Art Institute of Chicago, 1933.1158.
Materials/composition
Analysis indicates that the lower layer contains calcium carbonate (chalk), with traces of iron oxide, various silicates, and calcium sulfate. Several intact microfossils were observed in the chalk layer (fig. 16.29). The upper layer contains primarily lead white and barium sulfate (barite), with traces of bone black and iron oxide red, various silicates, silica, calcium carbonate, and calcium sulfate. Barite is present in a wide range of sizes, including very large particles (fig. 16.30).[37] Binder: Oil (estimated).
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Fig. 16.29
Backscattered electron (BSE) image of a cross section of the ground of Monet’s Arrival of the Normandy Train, Gare Saint-Lazare (1877) showing intact microfossils in the lower (dark-gray) chalk layer. The Art Institute of Chicago, 1933.1158.
Fig. 16.30
Backscattered electron (BSE) image of a cross section of the ground of Monet’s Arrival of the Normandy Train, Gare Saint-Lazare (1877) showing large barite particles (medium-gray) in the upper layer. The Art Institute of Chicago, 1933.1158.
Compositional Planning/Underdrawing/Painted Sketch
Extent/character
No underdrawing was observed with infrared reflectography (IRR) or microscopic examination.[38]29
Paint Layer
Application/technique and artist’s revisions
Overall, the brushwork is open and somewhat sketchy, with areas of exposed ground left visible through thinly painted passages and at breaks in the brushstrokes. The composition was laid in using thin layers of paint to block out the main forms. The painting was then built up using smooth, fluid paint applications (fig. 16.31), more-bodied paint and low impasto (fig. 16.32), and lightly dragged and dry-brush strokes that skip across the surface of the painting (fig. 16.33). This range of brushwork creates a varied surface texture, which is highlighted when the painting is viewed in raking light (fig. 16.34).
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Figs. 16.31–16.34
Fig. 16.31
Detail of the sky in Monet’s Arrival of the Normandy Train, Gare Saint-Lazare (1877) showing the relatively smooth, fluid paint application. The Art Institute of Chicago, 1933.1158.
Fig. 16.32
Detail of the steam clouds in Monet’s Arrival of the Normandy Train, Gare Saint-Lazare (1877) showing the thick paint application. The Art Institute of Chicago, 1933.1158.
Fig. 16.33
Detail of the large steam cloud in Monet’s Arrival of the Normandy Train, Gare Saint-Lazare (1877) showing the swirling, light-handed brushstrokes that skim the surface of the painting. The Art Institute of Chicago, 1933.1158.
Fig. 16.34
Raking-light image of Monet’s Arrival of the Normandy Train, Gare Saint-Lazare (1877) showing the texture of the paint. The Art Institute of Chicago, 1933.1158.
The station roof was blocked in using very thin applications of paint in dull hues ranging from dark brown and purple to shades of gray (fig. 16.35). These initial layers were broadly applied but are not continuous, leaving the ground layer visible in places (fig. 16.36). The roof was then built up using deeper shades of blue and green. An area of the right side of the roof was left in reserve for the large cloud of steam, which was painted directly over the ground layer, or in some places, over the initial thin lay-in of the roof structure (fig. 16.37). The panes of glass at the peak of the roof were also painted directly on top of the ground. The linear strokes of the skylight framework were laid in first using thin applications of dark green and blue paint. The glass was then painted using individual strokes of thicker, lead white–rich paint, leaving the creamy white tone of the ground layer visible in places (fig. 16.38). In the space just below the roof, where the grid of iron tie rods appears, some of the pale blue-gray strokes of the steam and the sky were laid down first, including the thick, white, diagonal strokes (fig. 16.39). The iron tie rods were then drawn through the wet paint using a fine brush (fig. 16.40), with additional strokes of steam applied on top. The infrared reflectogram shows that the artist originally painted in some of the iron tie rod grid work under the right side of the roof (fig. 16.41). This was subsequently covered by the billows of steam from the locomotive below (fig. 16.42). The compositional forms are mostly rendered with a few quick brushstrokes, without significant blending, modeling, or articulation of details. The figures, for example, basically consist of long vertical strokes of dark blue and green to denote the bodies, with daubs of warm reddish-brown paint to indicate areas of flesh (fig. 16.43). Only the tall figure in the foreground contains any specificity of detail (fig. 16.44)—his hair, jacket, pants, and left hand are all discernible—but even this was done with a few economical strokes of the brush (fig. 16.45).
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Figs. 16.35–16.39
Fig. 16.35
Detail of the station roof in Monet’s Arrival of the Normandy Train, Gare Saint-Lazare (1877) showing the thin paint applications used to lay in the structure. The Art Institute of Chicago, 1933.1158.
Fig. 16.36
Detail of the station roof in Monet’s Arrival of the Normandy Train, Gare Saint-Lazare (1877) showing the thin gray paint used to lay in the roof. The Art Institute of Chicago, 1933.1158.
Fig. 16.37
Detail of the large steam cloud in Monet’s Arrival of the Normandy Train, Gare Saint-Lazare (1877) showing exposed ground in an area of the roof that was left in reserve. The Art Institute of Chicago, 1933.1158.
Fig. 16.38
Detail of the glass roof of the station in Monet’s Arrival of the Normandy Train, Gare Saint-Lazare (1877) showing exposed ground around the strokes of thick paint used to denote the panes of glass. The Art Institute of Chicago, 1933.1158.
Fig. 16.39
Detail of the iron tie rods of the station roof in Monet’s Arrival of the Normandy Train, Gare Saint-Lazare (1877). The Art Institute of Chicago, 1933.1158.
Fig. 16.40
Photomicrograph of the iron tie rods of the station roof in Monet’s Arrival of the Normandy Train, Gare Saint-Lazare (1877) showing some wet-in-wet paint application. The Art Institute of Chicago, 1933.1158.
Fig. 16.41
Infrared reflectogram (Goodrich, 1.5–1.7 µm) and natural-light details of Monet’s Arrival of the Normandy Train, Gare Saint-Lazare (1877) showing that the artist painted over some of the iron tie rods of the station roof. The Art Institute of Chicago, 1933.1158. Interactive image.
Figs. 16.42–16.44
Fig. 16.42
Detail of the station roof in Monet’s Arrival of the Normandy Train, Gare Saint-Lazare (1877) showing three diagonal strokes from the iron tie rods that were subsequently covered by the steam cloud. The Art Institute of Chicago, 1933.1158.
Fig. 16.43
Detail of a group of figures in Monet’s Arrival of the Normandy Train, Gare Saint-Lazare (1877). The Art Institute of Chicago, 1933.1158.
Fig. 16.44
Detail of a figure in Monet’s Arrival of the Normandy Train, Gare Saint-Lazare (1877). The Art Institute of Chicago, 1933.1158.
Fig. 16.45
Photomicrograph of the head of a figure in Monet’s Arrival of the Normandy Train, Gare Saint-Lazare (1877). The Art Institute of Chicago, 1933.1158.
The work contains both wet-over-dry and wet-in-wet paint application. The thinly applied underlayers look like they were dry before the painting was built up, as the ridges of the brushstrokes were not disturbed by subsequent paint applications. Much of the buildup of the painting was executed with localized areas of wet-in-wet brushwork. For example, the foreground lantern consists of a thick lead white–rich stroke, with the metal structure described by subsequent fine strokes of green paint that were dragged through the white (fig. 16.46). Some of the light-colored details and contours of the front of the locomotive were added over the still-wet underlayers, mixing wet-in-wet (fig. 16.47). The foreground consists of thin, relatively flat, opaque layers of light green and gray paint. A few final strokes were lightly dragged over the surface when the underlying layers were already dry. The presence of wet-over-dry paint application at different stages of the painting process indicates that the work was carried out in more than one session.
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Fig. 16.46
Detail of a lantern in Monet’s Arrival of the Normandy Train, Gare Saint-Lazare (1877) showing thick wet-on-wet paint application. The Art Institute of Chicago, 1933.1158.
Fig. 16.47
Photomicrograph of the locomotive in Monet’s Arrival of the Normandy Train, Gare Saint-Lazare (1877) showing wet-in-wet paint application.The Art Institute of Chicago, 1933.1158.
In the lower left corner, just above the signature, the infrared reflectogram reveals some sweeping brushstrokes coming from the bottom of the train car, down over the area currently occupied by the rail tracks (fig. 16.48); the texture of the underlying brushstrokes is visible in raking light (fig. 16.49). The brushwork is rather cursory, and it is unclear what the forms represented. When viewed under magnification, some of these brushstrokes are relatively thick and light in hue, containing a high proportion of lead white paint, but other areas were covered by the artist using a slightly different, more brownish-green hue compared to the cooler green of the adjacent platform (fig. 16.50). It seems that the rail tracks were laid in first and that they continue underneath the pentimento. When the area was subsequently painted over, the lines of the tracks were reinforced on top (fig. 16.48). The artist made some small changes in the area of the locomotive. The cloud of steam emanating from the chimney initially covered a larger area but was then partially covered when the chimney was extended in height (fig. 16.51). The roofline of the building behind, on the left side, also appears to have been altered slightly. There is an area of disturbed paint close to the top edge, near the center of the painting, where it appears that the paint was pushed and scraped while it was still soft.[39] Losses in that area were subsequently retouched, possibly by the artist in some places. The retouching was not precisely done and the damage remains visible on close viewing (fig. 16.52).
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Fig. 16.48
Infrared reflectogram (Goodrich, 1.5–1.7 µm) and natural-light details of Monet’s Arrival of the Normandy Train, Gare Saint-Lazare (1877) showing changes made to the composition. The Art Institute of Chicago, 1933.1158. Interactive image.
Fig. 16.49
Raking-light and natural-light details of Monet’s Arrival of the Normandy Train, Gare Saint-Lazare (1877) showing changes made to the composition. The Art Institute of Chicago, 1933.1158. Interactive image.
Fig. 16.50
Detail from the lower left corner of Monet’s Arrival of the Normandy Train, Gare Saint-Lazare (1877) showing changes made to the composition. The Art Institute of Chicago, 1933.1158.
Fig. 16.51
Transmitted infrared (Fuji, 1.0–1.1 µm), X-ray, and natural-light details of Monet’s Arrival of the Normandy Train, Gare Saint-Lazare (1877) showing changes made to the composition. The Art Institute of Chicago, 1933.1158. Interactive image.
Fig. 16.52
Photomicrograph of the top edge of Monet’s Arrival of the Normandy Train, Gare Saint-Lazare (1877) showing an old damage made to the paint when it was still soft and subsequent retouching. The Art Institute of Chicago, 1933.1158.
Painting tools
Brushes, including approximately 0.2 cm, 0.5 cm, and 1.0 cm width, flat ferrule (based on width and shape of brushstrokes). There are several brush hairs embedded in the paint layers.34
Palette
Analysis indicates the presence of the following pigments: lead white, cadmium yellow, chrome yellow, iron oxides including iron oxide yellow and possibly burnt sienna, vermilion, red lake,[40] viridian, ultramarine blue, cobalt blue, and bone black.[41] Examination of the painting under UV light suggests the use of red lake in the signature and the sky.[42]35
Binding media
Oil (estimated).[43]36
Surface Finish
Varnish layer/media
The painting is currently coated with a spray application of polyvinyl acetate (PVA) AYAA, which was applied in 1961. Yellowed natural-resin varnish residues are visible in the recesses of the paint texture; these residues probably relate to the varnish that was removed in 1961 (see Conservation History).37
Conservation History
There are no records of conservation treatment prior to 1961, however, the painting is currently lined with an aqueous adhesive which was probably applied prior to its acquisition in 1933.38
In 1961, a discolored surface film was removed. A spray coat of polyvinyl acetate (PVA) AYAA was applied and localized retouching was carried out along the edges. A final spray coat of AYAA was applied.[44]39
Condition Summary
The painting is in good condition. It is lined with an aqueous adhesive and appears to retain its original stretcher. The stretcher has been keyed out, causing the ends of the top and bottom members to project slightly on the left and right sides. The bottom member is slightly bowed. There is a slight bulge at the lower right corner, but otherwise, the canvas is in plane. There is some abrasion in the frame rebate area, as well as embedded wood fibers that are probably related to framing when the paint was still soft. There are a few tiny, old flake losses in the paint and ground layers. Cracking is minimal and very fine. There are a couple of localized areas of drying cracks. Retouching is minimal and is focused mainly along the bottom edge. The synthetic varnish imparts an even surface sheen.
Kimberley Muir40
Frame
Current frame: The frame is not original to the painting. It is a French (Parisian), nineteenth-century (1860/80), wedge-shaped, molding frame capped by a torus with an astragal and ogee sight molding. The frame is water gilded over red-brown bole and burnished on the torus and astragal; all other surfaces are matte. The sides and outside scotia are painted with yellow casein, and the frame retains the original gilding and glue size. The pine molding is mitered and joined with angled dovetail splines. The molding, from perimeter to interior, is scotia side; torus (three-quarter-round); beveled face; astragal; and ogee sight (fig. 16.53).[45]
41
Fig. 16.53
Monet’s Arrival of the Normandy Train, Gare Saint-Lazare (1877) in its current frame. The Art Institute of Chicago, 1956.1202.
Previous frame (installed in the 1960s; removed in 2008): A stylized, mid-twentieth-century, American reproduction of a Louis XVI architrave frame with a small fluted scotia and beaded sight molding and an independent fillet liner with a cove sight (fig. 16.54).[46]
42
Fig. 16.54
Monet’s Arrival of the Normandy Train, Gare Saint-Lazare (1877) in a previous frame, installed in Paintings by Monet, Art Institute of Chicago, Mar. 15–May 11, 1975. Institutional Archives, Art Institute of Chicago.
Previous frame (installed by 1933; removed in the 1960s): The work was previously housed in an early-twentieth-century, Louis XV frame with swept sides and foliate rocaille miter and foliate shell center cartouches, and an independent liner (fig. 16.55).
43
Fig. 16.55
Monet’s Arrival of the Normandy Train, Gare Saint-Lazare (1877) in a previous frame, installed in “A Century of Progress”: Loan Exhibition of Paintings and Sculpture, Art Institute of Chicago, May 23–Nov. 1, 1933. Institutional Archives, Art Institute of Chicago.
Kirk Vuillemot
44
Paris, 6, rue Le Peletier, 3e exposition de peinture [third Impressionist exhibition], Apr. 1877, cat. 97, as Arrivée du train de Normandie, gare St-Lazare, appartient à M. H. …53
Paris, Galerie Georges Petit, 6e exposition international e de peinture et de sculpture, May 8–June 8, 1887, no cat. no.[54]54
Paris, Galerie Georges Petit, Claude Monet—A. Rodin, June 21–Sept. 21, 1889, cat. 33, as Gare Saint-Lazare. 1877. Appartient à M. de Bellio.[55]55
Paris, Grand Palais des Champs-Élysées, Exposition Universelle de 1900, L’exposition centennale de l’art français de 1800 a 1889, May 1–Nov. 12, 1900, cat. 484, as Le Train de Normandie (à M. Alexandre Bernheim jeune [sic]).[56]56
Brussels, Libre Esthétique, Exposition des peintres impressionnistes, Feb. 25–Mar. 29, 1904, cat. 98, as La Gare Saint-Lazare. Exposition centennale, 1900. Appartient à MM. J. et G. Bernheim jeune [sic].57
New York, Durand-Ruel, Monet, Dec. 2–23, 1911, cat. 8.[57]58
Art Institute of Chicago, “A Century of Progress”: Loan Exhibition of Paintings and Sculpture, May 23–Nov. 1, 1933, cat. 299.[58] (fig. 16.56)
59
Fig. 16.56
Installation of Monet’s Arrival of the Normandy Train, Gare Saint-Lazare (1877) in “A Century of Progress”: Loan Exhibition of Paintings and Sculpture, Art Institute of Chicago, May 23–Nov. 1, 1933. Institutional Archives, Art Institute of Chicago.
Art Institute of Chicago, “A Century of Progress”: Loan Exhibition of Paintings and Sculpture for 1934, June 1–Oct. 31, 1934, cat. 219.[59]60
Boston, Museum of Fine Arts, Independent Painters of Nineteenth Century Paris, Mar. 15–Apr. 28, 1935, cat. 32.61
New York World’s Fair, European & American Paintings, 1500–1900: Masterpieces of Art, May–Oct. 1940, cat. 322.62
Dayton (Ohio) Art Institute, The Railroad in Painting: An Exhibition of Paintings Shown at the Dayton Art Institute, Apr. 19–May 22, 1949, cat. 50 (ill.).63
Cambridge, Massachusetts Institute of Technology, Charles Hayden Memorial Library, The Painter and the City, May 8–June 15, 1950, no cat. no. (ill.).64
Philadelphia Museum of Art, Diamond Jubilee Exhibition: Masterpieces of Painting, Nov. 3, 1950–Feb. 11, 1951, cat. 70 (ill.).[60]65
Paris, Musée de l’Orangerie, De David à Toulouse-Lautrec: Chefs-d’oeuvres des collections américaines, Apr. 20–July 3, 1955, cat. 42 (ill.).[61]66
Art Institute of Chicago, The Paintings of Claude Monet, Apr. 1–June 15, 1957, no cat. no.[62]67
Munich, Haus der Kunst München, Französische Malerei des 19. Jahrhunderts: Von David bis Cézanne, Oct. 7, 1964–Jan. 6, 1965, cat. 191 (ill.).68
Minneapolis Institute of Arts, The Past Rediscovered: French Painting, 1800–1900, July 3–Sept. 7, 1969, cat. 60 (ill.).69
New York, Wildenstein and Company, “One Hundred Years of Impressionism:” A Tribute to Durand-Ruel, Apr. 2–May 9, 1970, cat. 37 (ill.).70
Art Institute of Chicago, Paintings by Monet, Mar. 15–May 11, 1975, cat. 42 (ill.). (fig. 16.57)
71
Fig. 16.57
Installation of Monet’s Arrival of the Normandy Train, Gare Saint-Lazare (1877) in Paintings by Monet, Art Institute of Chicago, Mar. 15–May 11, 1975. Institutional Archives, Art Institute of Chicago.
Art Institute of Chicago, Art at the Time of the Centennial, June 19–Aug. 8, 1976, no cat.[63]72
Washington, D.C., National Gallery of Art, Manet and Modern Paris, Dec. 5, 1982–Mar. 6, 1983, cat. 14 (ill.).73
Los Angeles County Museum of Art, A Day in the Country: Impressionism and the French Landscape, June 28–Sept. 16, 1984, cat. 32 (ill.); Art Institute of Chicago, Oct. 23, 1984–Jan. 6, 1985; Paris, Galeries Nationales, Grand Palais, as L’impressionnisme et le paysage français, Feb. 4–Apr. 22, 1985, cat. 70 (ill.).74
Washington, D.C., National Gallery of Art, The New Painting: Impressionism, 1874–1886, Jan. 17–Apr. 6, 1986, cat. 51 (ill.); Fine Arts Museums of San Francisco and M. H. de Young Memorial Museum, Apr. 19–July 6, 1986.75
Art Institute of Chicago, Chicago’s Dream, a World’s Treasure: The Art Institute of Chicago, 1893–1993, Nov. 1, 1993–Jan. 9, 1994, not in cat.[64]76
Nagaoka, Niigata Prefectural Museum of Modern Art, Shikago bijutsukan ten: Kindai kaiga no 100-nen [Masterworks of modern art from the Art Institute of Chicago], Apr. 20–May 29, 1994, cat. 7 (ill.); Nagoya, Aichi Prefectural Museum of Art, June 10–July 24, 1994; Yokohama Museum of Art, Aug. 6–Sept. 25, 1994.77
Art Institute of Chicago, Claude Monet, 1840–1926, July 22–Nov. 26, 1995, cat. 50 (ill.). (fig. 16.58)
78
Fig. 16.58
Installation of Monet’s Arrival of the Normandy Train, Gare Saint-Lazare (1877) in Claude Monet, 1840–1926, Art Institute of Chicago, July 22–Nov. 26, 1995. Institutional Archives, Art Institute of Chicago.
Vienna, Österreichische Galerie, Claude Monet, Mar. 14–June 16, 1996, cat. 24 (ill.).79
Copenhagen, Ordrupgaard, Impressionister i byen, Sept. 6–Dec. 1, 1996, cat. 44 (ill.).80
Paris, Musée d’Orsay, Manet, Monet and the Gare Saint-Lazare, Feb. 9–May 17, 1998, cat. 47 (ill.), Washington, D.C., National Gallery of Art, June 14–Sept. 20, 1998.81
Florence, Sala Bianca di Palazzo Pitti, Claude Monet: La poesia della luce; Sette capolavori dell’Art Institute di Chicago a Palazzo Pitti, June 2–Aug. 29, 1999, no cat. no. (ill.).82
Moscow, State Pushkin Museum of Fine Arts, Klod Mone [Claude Monet], Nov. 26, 2001–Feb. 21, 2002, cat. 17 (ill.), Saint Petersburg, State Hermitage Museum, May 1–15, 2002.[65]83
New York, Wildenstein and Company, Claude Monet (1840–1926): A Tribute to Daniel Wildenstein and Katia Granoff, Apr. 27–June 15, 2007, cat. 21 (ill.).84
Fort Worth, Tex., Kimbell Art Museum, The Impressionists: Master Paintings from the Art Institute of Chicago, June 29–Nov. 2, 2008, cat. 17 (ill.).85
Paris, Galeries Nationales, Grand Palais, Claude Monet, 1840–1926, Sept. 22, 2010–Jan. 24, 2011, cat. 44 (ill.).
86
Documentation from the Durand-Ruel Archives
Inventory number
Stock Durand-Ruel Paris 9749
Livre de stock Paris 1901[86]249
Inventory number
Stock Durand-Ruel New York 3502
Livre de stock New York 1904–24[87]250
Photograph number
Photo Durand-Ruel Paris 7099[88]
251
Other Documents
Label (fig. 16.59)
252
Fig. 16.59
Label (fig. 16.60)
253
Fig. 16.60
Inscription (fig. 16.61)
254
Fig. 16.61
Inscription (fig. 16.62)
255
Fig. 16.62
Documentation from the Bernheim-Jeune Archives
Label (fig. 16.63)
256
Fig. 16.63
Inscription (fig. 16.64)
257
Fig. 16.64
Labels and Inscriptions
Undated
Label
Location: previous Masonite-type backing board (discarded); transcription in conservation file
Method: not documented
Content: Monet / Old St. Lazare Sta Paris / 23 1/2 x 031 1/2 (fig. 16.65)
258
Fig. 16.65
Label
Location: previous Masonite-type backing board (discarded); transcription in conservation file
Method: not documented
Content: The Minneapolis Institute of Arts / L 69.120 / Lent by Art Institute of Chicago / 77-‘69 (fig. 16.66)
259
Fig. 16.66
Label
Location: stretcher
Method: handwritten script on printed label
Content: Monet No 3502 / La gare St. / Lazare, 1877 / Paris ibbb (fig. 16.59)
260
Label
Location: stretcher
Method: handwritten script
Content: Cl. Monet no. 9749 / La gare St Lazare (le train / de Normandie) 1877. - (fig. 16.60)
261
Label
Location: stretcher
Method: handwritten script on printed label (added markings in blue and red crayon)
Content: Claude Monet / Le Train de Normandie / appartient à Monsieur Gaston Bernh[eim] / Jeune / 51 Rue Pierre Charron [It appears that “Gaston” has been scribbled out with blue crayon and replaced with “Alexandre,” which is written upside down] (fig. 16.67)
262
Fig. 16.67
Label
Location: stretcher
Method: handwritten script on printed label
Content: P. R. / 2462 / Monet / Gare S Lazare (fig. 16.68)
263
Fig. 16.68
Label
Location: stretcher
Method: handwritten script on printed label
Content: 13 (fig. 16.69)
264
Fig. 16.69
Label
Location: stretcher
Method: residues of circular paper label
Content: [?] (fig. 16.70)
265
Fig. 16.70
Label
Location: stretcher
Method: residues of rectangular paper label
Content: [?] (fig. 16.71)
266
Fig. 16.71
Inscription
Location: stretcher
Method: handwritten
Content: W27 (fig. 16.72)
267
Fig. 16.72
Inscription
Location: stretcher
Method: handwritten (passes over brown paper on stretcher back)
Content: (NO 22) (fig. 16.73)
268
Fig. 16.73
Inscription
Location: stretcher
Method: handwritten
Content: DR 9749 (fig. 16.62)269
Inscription
Location: stretcher
Method: handwritten
Content: Ph. 7099 (fig. 16.61)270
Inscription
Location: stretcher
Method: handwritten, partially covered by brown paper
Content: [28?] (fig. 16.74)
271
Fig. 16.74
Label
Location: stretcher
Method: handwritten script on printed label with green ink stamp
Content: THE ART INSTITUTE OF CHICAGO / CHICAGO ILLINOIS 60603, U.S.A. / To Monet, Claude / Old St. Lazare Station, Paris / 1933.1158
Stamp: Inventory—1980–1981 (fig. 16.75)
272
Fig. 16.75
Inscription
Location: stretcher
Method: handwritten
Content: 33.1158 (fig. 16.76)
273
Fig. 16.76
Inscription
Location: stretcher
Method: handwritten
Content: [app. a M?] Alexandre Bernheim (fig. 16.64)274
Label
Location: backing board
Method: typewritten script on printed label
Content: THE ART INSTITUTE OF CHICAGO / artist Claude Monet / title Arrival of the Normandy Train / medium cat # 12 / credit crate # 19 / acc. # 1933.1158 (fig. 16.77)
275
Fig. 16.77
Inscription
Location: previous frame back; 1973 photograph in conservation file
Method: handwritten
Content: ST. LAZARRE [sic] STATION MONET TOP [last word scribbled out] (fig. 16.78)
276
Fig. 16.78
Pre-1980
Label
Location: previous Masonite-type backing board (discarded); transcription in conservation file
Method: not documented
Content: H(torn) ER KUNST MUNCHEN / Bahnhof St. Lazare in Paris / Art Institute of Chicago / 80 x 59.7 / Kat. Nr.: 191 / 42 [circled][89] (fig. 16.79)
277
Fig. 16.79
Post-1980
Label
Location: backing board
Method: printed label with green circular sticker
Content: [logo] JAPAN / YAMATO TRANSPORT CO.,LTD. / FINE ARTS DIVISION / EXHIBT. JAPAN 94’ シカゴ 美術館展 [Shikago (Chicago) Bijutsukan ten] / CASE NO. 19 / CATAL. NO. / [green sticker] 7 (fig. 16.80)
278
Fig. 16.80
Label
Location: backing board
Method: printed label
Content: The Art Institute of Chicago / “Claude Monet: 1840–1926” / July 14, 1995–November 26, 1995 / Catalog: 50 / Arrival of the Normandy Train, Saint-Lazare Station / La Gare Saint-Lazare, le train de Normandie / The Art Institute of Chicago, Mr. and Mrs. Martin A. / Ryerson Collection (1933.1158) (fig. 16.81)
279
Fig. 16.81
Label
Location: backing board
Method: printed label with handwritten script
Content: MANET, MONET / LA GARE SAINT-LAZARE / Musée d’Orsay / 9 février–17 mai 1998 / M’O / CAT. 47 (fig. 16.82)
280
Fig. 16.82
Label
Location: backing board
Method: typewritten script on printed label (with handwritten check mark in upper right corner)
Content: [logo] National Gallery of Art / Washington, D.C. / Dex ID. 55 / Exhibit: Manet, Monet, and the Gare / Date: 06/14/98–09/20/98 / Artist: Claude Monet / Title: Arrival of the Normandy Train, / Gare Saint-Lazare / Lender: The Art Institute of Chicago / Cat No. 47 (fig. 16.83)
281
Fig. 16.83
Label
Location: backing board
Method: printed label
Content: rmn [logo] / Claude Monet 1840–1926 / Galeries nationales, Grand Palais / 22/09/2010–24/01/2011 / 42 / Chicago / The Art Institute of Chicago / La Gare Saint-Lazare, train de Normandie / inv. 1933.1158 / huile sur toile (fig. 16.84)
282
Fig. 16.84
Examination and Analysis Techniques
X-radiography
Westinghouse X-ray unit, scanned on Epson Expressions 10000XL flatbed scanner. Scans digitally composited by Robert G. Erdmann, University of Arizona.283
Infrared Reflectography
Goodrich/ Sensors Unlimited SU640SDV-1.7RT with H filter (1.1–1.4 µm) and J filter (1.5–1.7 µm); Fujifilm S5 Pro with X-Nite 1000B/2 mm filter (1.0–1.1 µm); Inframetrics Infracam with 1.5–1.73 µm filter.284
Transmitted Infrared
Fujifilm S5 Pro with X-Nite 1000B/2 mm filter (1.0–1.1 µm).285
Visible Light
Natural-light, raking-light, and transmitted-light overalls and macrophotography: Fujifilm S5 Pro with X-NiteCC1 filter.286
Ultraviolet
Fujifilm S5 Pro with X-NiteCC1 filter and Kodak Wratten 2E filter.287
High-Resolution Visible Light (and Ultraviolet)
Sinar P3 camera with Sinarback eVolution 75 H (PECA 918 UV/IR interference cut filter and Kodak Wratten 2E filter).288
Microscopy and Photomicrographs
Sample and cross-sectional analysis using a Zeiss Axioplan2 Research Microscope equipped with reflected light/UV fluorescence and a Zeiss AxioCam MRc5 digital camera. Types of illumination used: darkfield, differential interference contrast (DIC), and UV. In situ photomicrographs with a Wild Heerbrugg M7A StereoZoom Microscope fitted with an Olympus DP71 microscope digital camera.289
X-ray Fluorescence Spectroscopy (XRF)
Several spots on the painting were analyzed in situ with a Bruker/Keymaster TRACeR III-V with rhodium tube.290
Polarized Light Microscopy (PLM)
Zeiss Universal research microscope.291
Scanning Electron Microscopy/Energy-Dispersive X-ray Spectroscopy (SEM/EDX)
Cross sections were analyzed after carbon coating with a Hitachi S-3400N-II VP-SEM with an Oxford EDS and a Hitachi solid-state BSE detector. Analysis was performed at the Northwestern University Atomic and Nanoscale Characterization Experimental (NUANCE) Center, Electron Probe Instrumentation Center (EPIC) facility.292
Electron Microprobe
Applied Research Laboratories (ARL) electron microprobe analyzer. Analysis was carried out at McCrone Associates, Chicago, Illinois293
Automated Thread Counting
Thread count and weave information were determined by Thread Count Automation Project software.[90]294
Image Registration Software
Overlay images registered using a novel image-based algorithm developed by Damon M. Conover (GW), John K. Delaney (GW, NGA), and Murray H. Loew (GW) of the George Washington University’s the School of Engineering and Applied Science and the National Gallery of Art, Washington, D.C.[91]295
Image Inventory
The image inventory compiles records of all known images of the artwork on file in the Conservation Department, the Imaging Department, and the Department of Medieval to Modern European Painting and Sculpture at the Art Institute of Chicago (fig. 16.85).
296
- Arrival of the Normandy Train, Gare Saint-Lazare (W440) corresponds to Daniel Wildenstein, Monet: Catalogue raisonné/Werkverzeichnis, vol. 2, Nos. 1–968 (Taschen/Wildenstein Institute, 1996), pp. 178, cat. 440 (ill.); 179–80. The Art Institute currently uses the title that was given to the painting when it was exhibited at the third Impressionist exhibition. The painting had the following titles during the lifetime of the artist:
Apr. 1877: Arrivée du train de Normandie, gare St-Lazare (Catalogue de la 3e exposition de peinture, exh. cat. [E. Capiomont et V. Renault, 1877], p. 9, cat. 97).June 21, 1889: Gare Saint-Lazare. 1877 (Galerie Georges Petit, Claude Monet—A. Rodin, exh. cat. [Imp. de l’Art, 1889], p. 31, cat. 33).
May 1, 1900: Le Train de Normandie (Ludovic Baschet, ed., Catalogue officiel illustré de l’Exposition centennale de l’art français de 1800 à 1889, exh. cat. [Lemercier, 1900], p. 211, cat. 484).
Feb. 25, 1904: La Gare Saint-Lazare (Octave Maus, Exposition des peintres impressionnistes, exh. cat. [Libre Esthétique, 1904], p. 39, cat. 98).
Oct. 13, 1911: La gare Saint-Lazare, le train de Normandie (Durand-Ruel, Paris, stock book for 1901 [no. 9749]; Paul-Louis Durand-Ruel and Flavie Durand-Ruel, Durand-Ruel Archives, to the Art Institute of Chicago, Oct. 5, 2010, curatorial object file, Art Institute of Chicago).
Dec. 16, 1911: Paris, la Gare Saint-Lazare, 1877 (Durand-Ruel, New York, stock book for 1904–24 [no. 3502]; see Paul-Louis Durand-Ruel and Flavie Durand-Ruel, Durand-Ruel Archives, to the Art Institute of Chicago, Oct. 5, 2010, curatorial object file, Art Institute of Chicago).
- As Paul Tucker has posited, Monet’s discontent with the area was the result of its growth as an industrial and tourist destination, which ran counter to Monet’s pictorial aims. See Paul Hayes Tucker, The Impressionists at Argenteuil, exh. cat. (National Gallery of Art, Washington, D.C./Wadsworth Atheneum Museum of Art/Yale University Press, 2000), p. 40.
- Monet moved into his studio at 17, rue Moncey, nearby the Saint-Lazare train station, by January 17, 1877, thanks to Caillebotte, who paid the annual rent of 700 francs. See Charles F. Stuckey, with the assistance of Sophia Shaw, Claude Monet, 1840–1926, exh. cat. (Art Institute of Chicago/Thames & Hudson, 1995), p. 202, citing Monet to Charpentier, Jan. 17, 1877, in Daniel Wildenstein, Claude Monet: Biographie et catalogue raisonné, vol. 1 (Bibliothèque des Arts, 1974), p. 431, letter 101. Juliet Bareau points out that without a Paris studio, Monet needed a pied-à-terre, a place to store canvases and work on them during inhospitable weather. See Juliet Wilson-Bareau, Manet, Monet, and the Gare Saint-Lazare, exh. cat. (National Gallery of Art, Washington, D.C./Yale University Press, 1998), p. 105. Wildenstein further suggests that Monet used the rue Moncey pied-à-terre as a place to conduct business with those who were unable to travel out to Argenteuil. See Daniel Wildenstein, Monet, or The Triumph of Impressionism, cat. rais., vol. 1 (Taschen/Wildenstein Institute, 1996), p. 125.
- Paul Hayes Tucker, Claude Monet: Life and Art (Yale University Press, 1995), p. 91. Monet worked on the Hoschedé commission for about six months, July–December 1876, resulting in four decorative panels: Les dindons (Turkeys) (1877; Musée d’Orsay, Paris [W416]); Coin de jardin à Montgeron (The Garden at Montgeron) (1876; State Hermitage Museum, Saint Petersburg [W418]); L’étang à Montgeron (The Pond at Montgeron) (1876; State Hermitage, Saint Petersburg [W420]); and La chasse (Hunting) (1876; Musée de la Chasse et de la Nature, Hôtel Guénégaud, Paris [W433]). According to Charles Stuckey, Monet was invited to Château de Rottenbourg in September 1876 and stayed through December; see Charles F. Stuckey, with the assistance of Sophia Shaw, Claude Monet, 1840–1926, exh. cat. (Art Institute of Chicago/Thames & Hudson, 1995), p. 201. The number preceded by a W refers to the Monet catalogue raisonné; see Daniel Wildenstein, Monet: Catalogue raisonné/Werkverzeichnis, vols. 1–4 (Taschen/Wildenstein Institute, 1996).
- See Charles F. Stuckey, with the assistance of Sophia Shaw, Claude Monet, 1840–1926, exh. cat. (Art Institute of Chicago/Thames & Hudson, 1995), pp. 201–02. Scholarly opinions differs on the nature of the relationship between Monet and Alice during the Château de Rottembourg commission. Both Stuckey and Wildenstein suggest that an affair between the two began during this extended stay in Montgeron. Daniel Wildenstein further mentions that the last of Alice’s children, Jean-Pierre Hoschedé was born nine months later on August 20, 1877; see Wildenstein, Monet, or The Triumph of Impressionism, cat. rais., vol. 1 (Taschen/Wildenstein Institute, 1996), p. 125. Mary Mathews Gedo rejects this supposition, suggesting that Alice’s strong religious beliefs would have precluded the start of their relationship at this time; see Gedo, Monet and His Muse: Camille Monet in the Artist’s Life (University of Chicago Press, 2010), p. 183.
- Mary Mathews Gedo, Monet and His Muse: Camille Monet in the Artist’s Life (University of Chicago Press, 2010), p. 177.
- The design and construction of the Pont de l’Europe was the joint venture of the Compagnie de l’Ouest and the Société Fives Lill Cail. See Julia Sagraves, “The Street,” in Anne Distel, Douglas W. Druick, Gloria Groom, and Rodolphe Rapetti, with Julia Sagraves and an essay by Kirk Varnedoe, Gustave Caillebotte: Urban Impressionist, exh. cat. (Réunion des Musées Nationaux/Musée d’Orsay, Paris/Art Institute of Chicago/ Abbeville, 1995), pp. 97; 101, n. 71. For more on the history of the Gare Saint-Lazare and the Pont de l’Europe, see Juliet Wilson-Bareau, Manet, Monet, and the Gare Saint-Lazare, exh. cat. (National Gallery of Art, Washington, D.C./Yale University Press, 1998), pp. 65–76.
- Julia Sagraves, “The Street,” in Anne Distel, Douglas W. Druick, Gloria Groom, and Rodolphe Rapetti, with Julia Sagraves and an essay by Kirk Varnedoe, Gustave Caillebotte: Urban Impressionist, exh. cat. (Réunion des Musées Nationaux/Musée d’Orsay, Paris/Art Institute of Chicago/Abbeville, 1995), p. 97.
- See Jean Renoir, Renoir: My Father, trans. Randolph and Dorothy Weaver (Little, Brown, 1962), pp. 174–75. According to Jean, when asking for permission to paint the station, Monet told the stationmaster, “For a long time I have hesitated between North station and yours, but in the end I think yours has more character.” In a letter dated January 7, 1877, Monet mentions that he has had difficulty obtaining permission to paint the Gare Saint-Lazare station. See Daniel Wildenstein, Claude Monet: Biographie et catalogue raisonné, vol. 1 (Bibliothèque des Arts, 1974), p. 431, letter 100.
- James Rubin postulates Monet may have worked in sketchbooks while waiting to hear whether the permission to work in the station had been granted. James H. Rubin, Impressionism and the Modern Landscape: Productivity, Technology, and Urbanization from Manet to Van Gogh (University of California Press, 2008), p. 116. A digital presentation of Monet’s sketchbooks from the Musée Marmottan Monet, presented by the Sterling and Francine Clark Art Institute, Williamstown, Mass., is available at http://www.clarkart.edu/exhibitions/monet/sketchbooks.
- The number preceded by a D refers to Daniel Wildenstein, Claude Monet: Catalogue raisonné, vol. 5, Supplément aux peintures: Dessins; Pastels; Index (Wildenstein Institute, 1991).
- Although we cannot know for certain that Monet knew of Caillebotte’s painting, it was discussed in the Impressionist circle while Caillebotte was still working on it in 1876 and 1877, before he showed it in the third Impressionist exhibition along with Monet’s Gare series.
- See Jean Renoir, Renoir: My Father, trans. Randolph and Dorothy Weaver (Little, Brown, 1962), pp. 174–75. Jean Renoir relays the (likely apocryphal) story of how Monet worked within the Saint-Lazare train station. According to Jean, after gaining access to the station Monet had trains stopped and platforms cleared, and “the engines were crammed with coal so as to give out all the smoke Monet desired.” While this story is likely to some extent hyperbole, it is often recounted when discussing the Gare Saint-Lazare group of paintings. See Joseph Baillio and Cora Michael, “Highlights of the Exhibition,” in Wildenstein and Co., Claude Monet (1840–1926): A Tribute to Daniel Wildenstein and Katia Granoff, exh. cat. (Wildenstein, 2007), p. 194; and Karin Sagner-Düchting, Claude Monet, 1840–1926: A Feast for the Eyes, trans. Karen Williams (Taschen, 2004), p. 94.
- The number preceded by a W refers to the Monet catalogue raisonné; see Daniel Wildenstein, Monet: Catalogue raisonné/Werkverzeichnis, vols. 1–4 (Taschen/Wildenstein Institute, 1996).
- Juliet Wilson-Bareau, Manet, Monet, and the Gare Saint-Lazare, exh. cat. (National Gallery of Art, Washington, D.C./Yale University Press, 1998), pp. 106–09. According to John House, Monet likely reused canvases when he was not financially sound, mostly prior to 1880 (see, e.g., The Gare Saint-Lazare, Exterior View; 1877 [W447]), and the “few traced examples of reused canvases after 1880 were all executed on Monet’s travels, when he would have been more reluctant to scrap abortive starts for fear of being unable to obtain fresh materials,” even though he may have been able to afford to discard canvases. See John House, Monet: Nature into Art (Yale University Press, 1986), pp. 183–84. The number preceded by a W refers to the Monet catalogue raisonné; see Daniel Wildenstein, Monet: Catalogue raisonné/Werkverzeichnis, vols. 1–4 (Taschen/Wildenstein Institute, 1996).
- See Catalogue de la 3e exposition de peinture, exh. cat. (E. Capiomont et V. Renault, 1877), p. 9, cat. 97. Reprinted in Theodore Reff, Impressionist Group Exhibitions, Modern Art in Paris 23 (Garland, 1981), n.pag. See Charles S. Moffett, ed., The New Painting: Impressionism, 1874–1886, exh. cat. (Fine Arts Museums of San Francisco, 1986), pp. 205; and Juliet Wilson-Bareau, Manet, Monet, and the Gare Saint-Lazare, exh. cat. (National Gallery of Art, Washington, D.C./Yale University Press, 1998), p. 188, n. 83, for more on the identification of the Art Institute’s painting as cat. 97 and the other Gare paintings included in the exhibition.
- “M. Claude Monet is the most marked personality of the group. This year he is exhibiting some superb station interiors. One can hear the rumble of the trains surging forward, see the torrents of smoke winding through vast engine sheds. This is the painting of today: modern settings beautiful in their scope.” See Sylvie Gache-Patin, “The Urban Landscape,” in A Day in the Country: Impressionism and the French Landscape, ed. Andrea P. A. Belloli, exh. cat. (Los Angeles County Museum of Art, 1984), pp. 116; 117, n. 16, citing Émile Zola, Mon salon; Manet; Écrits sur l’art, ed. A. Ehrard (Paris, 1970), p. 282.
- Among the positive reviewers was Émile Zola, who ten years earlier had praised Monet for painting the poetry of la Parisienne (on the occasion of his Camille, shown at the Salon of 1866 and now in the Kunsthaus Bremen [1866 (W65)]), and now admonished modern artists to find “the poetry of railway stations as our fathers [Barbizon painters] found the poetry of forests and rivers.” See Sylvie Gache-Patin, “The Urban Landscape,” in A Day in the Country: Impressionism and the French Landscape, ed. Andrea P. A. Belloli, exh. cat. (Los Angeles County Museum of Art, 1984), pp. 116; 117, n. 16, citing Émile Zola, Mon salon, Manet, écrits sur l’art, ed. A. Ehrard (Paris, 1970), p. 282.
- Charles Bigot, “Causerie artistique. L’exposition des ‘Impressionnistes,’” La revue politique et littéraire, Apr. 28, 1877, p. 1047, translated in Charles S. Moffett, ed., The New Painting: Impressionism, 1874–1886, exh. cat. (Fine Arts Museums of San Francisco, 1986), p. 223: “These various studies are certainly not uninteresting, and one of them seems excellent. It is the one exhibited closest to the window [of the gallery], at the bottom, that shows an interior of the train station. The number is missing from the frame, but I am told it is no. 97, Arrivée du train de Normandie, and belonging to M. Hoscedé [sic].”
- Richard R. Brettell, “The ‘First’ Exhibition of Impressionist Painters,” in The New Painting: Impressionism, 1874–1886, ed. Charles S. Moffett, exh. cat. (Fine Arts Museums of San Francisco, 1986), p. 198. On the difference between “esquise” verses “tableau” and Monet’s attitude toward finish, see John House, Monet: Nature into Art (Yale University Press, 1986), pp. 157–166, specifically p. 161 for the Gare paintings.
- For a detailed map highlighting the locations of paintings made in and around the Gare Saint-Lazare by Manet, Monet, and Caillebotte, as well as the locations of their Paris homes and studios, see Juliet Wilson-Bareau, Manet, Monet, and the Gare Saint-Lazare, exh. cat. (National Gallery of Art, Washington, D.C./Yale University Press, 1998), pp. 6–7. Manet had exhibited his own railway painting (1873; National Gallery, Washington, D.C.) at the Salon of 1874 and continued to live on the rue de Rome overlooking the Gare Saint-Lazare. This was not lost on reviewers who commented on the “‘School of the Place de l’Europe,’ after the neighbor of M. Manet, of whom they [the Impressionists] are both the emulators and the contradictors.” Ernest Fillonneau, “Les impressionnistes,” Moniteur des arts, Apr. 20, 1877, p. 1, reprinted in Ruth Berson, ed., The New Painting: Impressionism, 1874–1886, Documentation, vol. 1, Reviews (Fine Arts Museums of San Francisco/University of Washington Press, 1996), p. 146.
- The number preceded by a W refers to the Monet catalogue raisonné; see Daniel Wildenstein, Monet: Catalogue raisonné/Werkverzeichnis, vols. 1–4 (Taschen/Wildenstein Institute, 1996).
- Juliet Wilson-Bareau, Manet, Monet, and the Gare Saint-Lazare, exh. cat. (National Gallery of Art, Washington, D.C./Yale University Press, 1998), pp. 111, 114. See also James H. Rubin, Impressionism and the Modern Landscape: Productivity, Technology, and Urbanization from Manet to Van Gogh (University of California Press, 2008),p. 116, who describes the parcels depot as storage sheds.
- Juliet Wilson-Bareau, Manet, Monet, and the Gare Saint-Lazare, exh. cat. (National Gallery of Art, Washington, D.C./Yale University Press, 1998), pp. 105; 188, n. 83. For more on the third Impressionist exhibition, see Richard R. Brettell, “The ‘First’ Exhibition of Impressionist Painters,” in The New Painting: Impressionism, 1874–1886, ed. Charles S. Moffett, exh. cat. (Fine Arts Museums of San Francisco, 1986), pp. 189–240.
- Although there is no evidence that de Bellio acquired the Chicago painting directly from the bankruptcy sale of Hoschedé’s art collection, his ownership of the work dates from that same year. On Hoschedé’s bankruptcy, see Hélène Adhémar, “Ernest Hoschedé,” in Aspects of Monet: A Symposium on the Artist’s Life and Times, ed. John Rewald and Frances Weitzenhoffer (Abrams, 1984), pp. 54–71; and on Hoschedé and de Bellio as collectors, see Anne Distel, Impressionism, The First Collectors, 1874–1886, trans. Barbara Perroud-Benson (Abrams, 1990), pp. 95–123.
- For an overview of the materials and methods of Claude Monet’s paintings in the Art Institute of Chicago, see Kimberley Muir, Inge Fiedler, Don H. Johnson, and Robert G. Erdmann, “An In-depth Study of the Materials and Technique of Paintings by Claude Monet from the Art Institute of Chicago,” ICOM-CC 17th Triennial Meeting Preprints, Melbourne, Sept. 15–19, 2014 (forthcoming).
- Using the toolbar at the bottom right, any two images of the painting may be selected for comparison by clicking the layers icon to the right of the slider bar. The slider bar may be moved to transition back and forth between the two chosen images. The jagged line icon brings up a list of available annotations, or colored lines that show the significant features visible in each image, which may be turned on or off in any combination. For example, the red annotation lines, associated with the natural-light image, trace some of the painting’s key compositional features. When overlaid onto a technical image (X-ray, raking light, UV, etc.), the red outlines help the viewer to better observe how features in the technical image relate to or diverge from the painting as seen with the naked eye. (When annotations are turned on, a legend appears in the upper right showing each color and its associated image type.) The circular arrow icon returns the image to the default settings (natural light, full-image view, natural-light [red] annotation on). The four-arrow icon toggles between the view of the image in the page and a full-screen view of the image. In the upper right corner, the vertical slider bar may be moved to zoom into or out of the image; different parts of the image can be accessed by clicking and dragging within the image itself. The icon in the upper left corner opens a small view of the full image, within which a red box indicates the portion of the overall image being viewed when zooming is enabled.
- PLM and XRF analysis, in conjunction with microscopic and UV examination of the painting surface, indicates that the paint mixture for the signature (t) contains red lake, cobalt blue, viridian, and some angular, opaque, black particles (possibly charcoal). Charcoal particles were also detected in several of the paint samples. Although no underdrawing was detected with infrared reflectography (IRR) or microscopic examination, it is possible that the charcoal particles are associated with limited underdrawing that became incorporated into the paint when painted over. Where charcoal underdrawing was detected in other Monet paintings, the material present was minimal—usually not detectable with IRR—and similar black particles were also observed in the paint samples. XRF analysis indicates that the date contains viridian, cadmium yellow, and cobalt blue. Other pigments may also be present. The paint scraping taken in 1977 was reexamined in 2013. See Inge Fiedler, “1933_1158_Monet_PLM_Results,” Oct. 16, 2013, and Kimberley Muir, “Mon_Gare_33_1158_XRF_Results,” Nov. 16, 2011, on file in the Conservation Department, Art Institute of Chicago.
- Flax was confirmed by microscopic cross-sectional fiber identification. See Inge Fiedler, “1933_1158_Monet_analytical_report,” Oct. 25, 2013, on file in the Conservation Department, Art Institute of Chicago.
- See, for example, the chart of standard sizes available from Bourgeois Aîné in 1888, reproduced in David Bomford, Jo Kirby, John Leighton, and Ashok Roy, Art in the Making: Impressionism, exh. cat. (National Gallery, London/Yale University Press, 1990), p. 46, fig. 31.
- Thread count and weave information determined by Thread Count Automation Project software; see Don H. Johnson and Robert G. Erdmann, “Thread Count Report: Claude Monet, Arrival of the Normandy Train, Gare Saint-Lazare (W0440/1933.1158),” Aug. 2011.
- The strong cusping present along the right edge may be primary cusping related to the attachment of the larger canvas, from which this canvas was cut, to the commercial priming frame.
- The construction and patina suggest that the stretcher may have been original or was added early in the painting’s lifetime.
- The construction of the stretcher appears similar to that of The Gare Saint-Lazare (1877; National Gallery, London [W441]), which is a no. 20 landscape format and has the stamp of the stretcher maker Hostellet on the stretcher crossbar, as well as the stamp of the supplier Deforge Carpentier on the canvas back; see David Bomford, Jo Kirby, John Leighton, and Ashok Roy, Art in the Making: Impressionism, exh. cat. (National Gallery, London/Yale University Press, 1990), pp. 50, 166. The number preceded by a W refers to the Monet catalogue raisonné; see Daniel Wildenstein, Monet: Catalogue raisonné/Werkverzeichnis, vols. 1–4 (Taschen/Wildenstein Institute, 1996).
- It should be noted, however, that the painting has been lined with an aqueous adhesive and that the fluorescing layer could be related to lining adhesive that has penetrated the canvas. See Inge Fiedler, “1933_1158_Monet_analytical_report,” Oct. 25, 2013, on file in the Conservation Department, Art Institute of Chicago.
- See Inge Fiedler, “1933_1158_Monet_analytical_report,” Oct. 25, 2013, on file in the Conservation Department, Art Institute of Chicago.
- See Inge Fiedler, “1933_1158_Monet_analytical_report,” Oct. 25, 2013, and Kimberley Muir, “Mon_Gare_33_1158_XRF_Results,” Nov. 16, 2012 on file in the Conservation Department, Art Institute of Chicago. The ground layer of Monet’s The Gare Saint-Lazare (National Gallery, London [W441]), also painted in 1877, was analyzed by X-ray diffraction and laser microprobe and found to contain primarily lead white with lesser amounts of iron and barium. See Ashok Roy, “The Palettes of Three Impressionist Paintings,” National Gallery Technical Bulletin 9 (1985), pp. 12–20. The number preceded by a W refers to the Monet catalogue raisonné; see Daniel Wildenstein, Monet: Catalogue raisonné/Werkverzeichnis, vols. 1–4 (Taschen/Wildenstein Institute, 1996).
- Although no underdrawing was detected, some angular, opaque, black particles (possibly charcoal) were detected in several of the paint samples (see Inge Fiedler, “1933_1158_Monet_PLM_Results,” Oct. 16, 2013, on file in the Conservation Department, Art Institute of Chicago). It is possible that the charcoal particles are associated with limited underdrawing that became incorporated into the paint when painted over. Where charcoal underdrawing was detected in other Monet paintings, the material present was minimal—usually not detectable with infrared reflectography (IRR)—and similar black particles were also observed in the paint samples.
- The position of the disturbed paint suggests that it could have been caused by an easel cleat.
- SEM/EDX analysis of deep red particles detected tin and aluminum, which may indicate that the red lake is precipitated on a tin and aluminum substrate. See Inge Fiedler, “1933_1158_Monet_analytical_report,” Oct. 25, 2013, on file in the Conservation Department, Art Institute of Chicago. Aluminum and tin were also detected in association with the red lake in Monet’s The Gare Saint-Lazare (National Gallery, London [W441]), also painted in 1877. See David Bomford, Jo Kirby, John Leighton, and Ashok Roy, Art in the Making: Impressionism, exh. cat. (National Gallery, London/Yale University Press, 1990), p. 201.
- The pigments were identified by the following methods: lead white, iron oxides, vermilion, viridian, cobalt blue (SEM/EDX, PLM, XRF); red lake, bone black (PLM, SEM/EDX); cadmium yellow (PLM, XRF); chrome yellow, ultramarine blue (PLM). Starch particles were identified in many of the paint samples analyzed with PLM and SEM/EDX and were probably added by the manufacturer. Analysis was carried out on selected areas and may not include all pigments present in the painting. Paint scrapings taken in 1977 were reexamined in 2013. For more detailed results and conditions used, see Inge Fiedler, “1933_1158_Monet_PLM_Results,” Oct. 16, 2013; Inge Fiedler, “1933_1158_Monet_analytical_report,” Oct. 25, 2013; and Kimberley Muir, “Mon_Gare_33_1158_XRF_Results,” Nov. 16, 2012, on file in the Conservation Department, Art Institute of Chicago.
- Identifying the specific type of lake used only by its fluorescence under UV is difficult, as many factors, including the type of substrate, binders, varnishes and admixtures with other pigments, can ultimately affect the perceived color of the fluorescence. Some types of madder and purpurin lake pigments have been reported to fluoresce orange, but other lakes, such as lacs, may fluoresce as well. The characteristics of red lakes, including their fluorescence under ultraviolet light, are discussed in Helmut Schweppe and John Winter, “Madder and Alizarin,” in Artists’ Pigments: A Handbook of Their History and Characteristics, ed. Elisabeth West FitzHugh, vol. 3 (National Gallery of Art, Washington, D.C., 1997), pp. 124–26. See also Ruth Johnston-Feller, Color Science in the Examination of Museum Objects: Nondestructive Procedures (Getty Conservation Institute, 2001), p. 207.
- The binding medium was not analyzed. The estimation of an oil medium is based on visual examination, as well as on knowledge of Monet’s technique and published analyses of Monet paintings in other collections. Samples analyzed from The Gare Saint-Lazare (1877; National Gallery, London [W441]) were found to include linseed oil and poppy oil, alone and mixed together. See David Bomford, Jo Kirby, John Leighton, and Ashok Roy, Art in the Making: Impressionism , exh. cat. (National Gallery, London/Yale University Press, 1990), pp. 72–75. The number preceded by a W refers to the Monet catalogue raisonné; see Daniel Wildenstein, Monet: Catalogue raisonné/Werkverzeichnis, vols. 1–4 (Taschen/Wildenstein Institute, 1996).
- See Alfred Jakstas, treatment record, Jan. 22, 1962, on file in the Conservation Department, Art Institute of Chicago.
- Kirk Vuillemot, “Monet Frame Descriptions Final,” Dec. 3, 2013, on file in the Conservation Department, Art Institute of Chicago.
- Kirk Vuillemot, “Monet Frame Descriptions Final,” Dec. 3, 2013, on file in the Conservation Department, Art Institute of Chicago.
- According to Daniel Wildenstein, Monet: Catalogue raisonné/Werkverzeichnis, vol. 2, Nos. 1–968 (Taschen/Wildenstein Institute, 1996), pp. 178, cat. 440 (ill.); 179–80.
Wildenstein states that several views of the Gare Saint-Lazare appear in a list of sales recorded by Monet in March 1877, and further suggests that the list includes the sale of this picture to Hoschedé (“Dès le mois de mars 1877, plusieurs vues de “La Gare Saint-Lazare” apparaissent dans la liste des ventes enregistrées par Monet: Ernest le magnifique en acquiert trois à lui seul [439, 440, 445]”); see Daniel Wildenstein, Claude Monet: Biographie et catalogue raisonné, vol. 1 (Bibliothèque des Arts, 1974), p. 84. - According to Daniel Wildenstein, Monet: Catalogue raisonné/Werkverzeichnis, vol. 2, Nos. 1–968 (Taschen/Wildenstein Institute, 1996), pp. 178, cat. 440 (ill.); 179–80.
- See Remus Niculescu, “Georges de Bellio, l’ami des impressionnistes (II),” Paragone 249 (Nov. 1970), pp. 56–85, which republished an inventory of Georges de Bellio’s collection, in which the painting is catalogued as no. 79, Intérieur de gare.
- According to Daniel Wildenstein, Monet: Catalogue raisonné/Werkverzeichnis, vol. 2, Nos. 1–968 (Taschen/Wildenstein Institute, 1996), pp. 178, cat. 440 (ill.); 179–80.
- According to Daniel Wildenstein, Monet: Catalogue raisonné/Werkverzeichnis, vol. 2, Nos. 1–968 (Taschen/Wildenstein Institute, 1996), pp. 178, cat. 440 (ill.); 179–80.
- The transaction is recorded in the Durand-Ruel, Paris, stock book for 1901 (no. 9749, as La gare Saint-Lazare, le train de Normandie): “Acheté par Durand-Ruel Paris (stock 9749) à P. Rosenberg le 13 octobre 1911 pour 13000 francs, La gare Saint-Lazare, le train de Normandie,” as confirmed by Paul-Louis Durand-Ruel and Flavie Durand-Ruel, Durand-Ruel Archives, to the Art Institute of Chicago, Oct. 5, 2010, curatorial object file, Art Institute of Chicago.
- The transaction is recorded in the Durand-Ruel, New York, stock book for 1904–24 (no. 3502, as Paris la gare Saint-Lazare): “Vendu par Durand-Ruel NY (stock 3502) à M. A. Ryerson le 16 décembre 1911 pour $7000, Paris, la Gare Saint-Lazare, 1877,” as confirmed by Paul-Louis Durand-Ruel and Flavie Durand-Ruel, Durand-Ruel Archives, to the Art Institute of Chicago, Oct. 5, 2010, curatorial object file, Art Institute of Chicago. This painting was on loan from Martin A. Ryerson to the Art Institute of Chicago, intermittently, by 1921, according to Museum Registration department artists sheets, on file in Museum Registration, Art Institute of Chicago.
- The picture was exhibited, but it was not included in the exhibition catalogue. See Remus Niculeseu, “Georges de Bellio, l’ami des impressionnistes,” Revue roumaine d’histoire de l’art 1, 2 (1964), p. 252, n. 2, who suggests that Train de Normandie—mentioned in a letter dated April 29, 1887, in which Monet asks de Bellio to lend the painting to an exposition being organized by Georges Petit—could be the Art Institute’s painting. See also Daniel Wildenstein, Claude Monet: Biographie et catalogue raisonné, vol. 1, Peintures, 1840–1881 (Bibliothèque des Arts, 1974), p. 304, cat. 440, who clarfies that the exhibited picture was the Art Institute’s version.
- The dates of this exhibition are unclear. Musée Rodin, Claude Monet—Auguste Rodin: Centenaire de l’exposition de 1889, exh. cat. (Musée Rodin, 1989), p. 19, reports that the exhibition was held from June 21 to August 1889. In Roger Terry Dunn, “The Monet-Rodin Exhibition at the Galerie Georges Petit in 1889” (Ph.D. diss., Northwestern University, 1978), pp. 74–76, Dunn found evidence that the exhibition lasted for three months. The dates used in the present catalogue reflect Dunn’s research; these dates are also used in Charles F. Stuckey, with the assistance of Sophia Shaw, Claude Monet, 1840–1926, exh. cat. (Art Institute of Chicago/Thames & Hudson, 1995), p. 218.
- The exhibition catalogue does not include exhibition dates, but newspaper articles confirm that the exhibition opened May 1 and closed November 12. While the Exposition Universelle of 1900 officially opened to the public on April 14—see “Paris Fair to Be Open Today,” Chicago Daily Tribune, Apr. 14, 1900, p. 1—many of the exhibitions had yet to be installed. See “Exposition Nearly Complete,” Chicago Daily Tribune, Apr. 29, 1990, p. 9, which states that the palaces of the Champs-Élysées opened to the public on May 1. See also, “American Exhibits at Paris. Palaces of Fine Arts Inaugurated by President Loubet,” New York Times, May 2, 1900, p. 8. For the closing of the exposition, see “Paris Exposition Closes Its Gates,” New York Times, Nov. 13, 1900, p. 7; and “Big Paris Fair Is Now Closed,” Chicago Daily Tribune, Nov. 13, 1900, p. 3.
- According to Daniel Wildenstein, Monet: Catalogue raisonné/Werkverzeichnis, vol. 2, Nos. 1–968 (Taschen/Wildenstein Institute, 1996), pp. 178, cat. 440 (ill.); 179–80.
- The exhibition catalogue lists the dates as June 1–November 1, 1933, but newspaper articles confirm the exhibition opened on May 23. See India Moffett, “Art Show of 1,500 World Famous Treasures Is Opened at Institute,” Chicago Daily Tribune, May 23, 1933, p. 17; and Virginia Gardner, “Record Throng of 1,367,000 Views Art Show,” Chicago Daily Tribune, Oct. 29, 1933, p. 7.
- The exhibition catalogue lists the dates as June 1–November 1, 1934, but newspaper articles confirm that the exhibition closed on October 31. See “Fair Art Exhibition Closes Forever at 5:30 This Afternoon,” Chicago Daily Tribune, Oct. 31, 1934, p. 2; and “Shippers Start Dismantling Art Exhibition Today,” Chicago Daily Tribune, Nov. 1, 1934, p. 3.
- The exhibition catalogue lists the exhibition dates as November 4, 1950–February 11, 1951, but the Philadelphia Museum Bulletin states the exhibition opened on November 3. See George D. Widener and Henri Marceau, “The Diamond Jubilee Exhibition,” Philadelphia Museum of Art Bulletin 45, 224 (Winter 1950), p. 79.
- The exhibition catalogue does not include exhibition dates, but newspaper articles confirm the exhibition opened on April 20 and closed on July 3. See Aline Saarinen, “U.S.-Lent Works on View in Paris,” New York Times, Apr. 20, 1955, p. C37; and Arthur O. Sulzberger, “Cultural Salute to France Ending,” New York Times, July 3, 1955, p. 34.
- The exhibition catalogue is printed in Art Institute of Chicago, “Catalogue,” Art Institute of Chicago Quarterly 51, 2 (Apr. 1, 1957), pp. 33–34. Under “Exhibitions” in the same issue, the exhibition dates were listed as April 1–30; however, the show was extended until June 15. See Edith Weigle, “The Wonderful World of Art,” Chicago Daily Tribune, May 26, 1957, p. E2, for an exhibition review and reference to the extension of the length of the show. The April 1957 issue of the Art Institute of Chicago Quarterly was largely dedicated to the Monet works in the Art Institute’s collection. The exhibition marked the first time the Art Institute’s thirty Monet paintings were shown together in the museum.
- No catalogue was produced for the exhibition, but there is a flyer that accompanied the exhibition; see curatorial object file, Art Institute of Chicago. The flyer includes a typewritten checklist of the European paintings that were included in the exhibition, which includes this painting. See also “Exhibitions,” Bulletin of the Art Institute of Chicago 70, 4 (Jul.–Aug. 1976), p. 20.
- The painting was exhibited but was not included in the exhibition catalogue; see Medieval to Modern European Painting and Sculpture cataloguing card in curatorial object file, Art Institute of Chicago. For the associated catalogue, see Neil Harris, Chicago’s Dream, a World’s Treasure: The Art Institute of Chicago, 1893–1993, ed. Teri J. Edelstein, afterword by James N. Wood, exh. cat. (Art Institute of Chicago, 1993).
- The dates of the exhibition are according to Wildenstein and Co., Claude Monet (1840–1926): A Tribute to Daniel Wildenstein and Katia Granoff, exh. cat. (Wildenstein, 2007), pp. 238, cat. 21 (ill.); 300–301; 303.
- This catalogue was reprinted in Theodore Reff, ed., Impressionist Group Exhibitions, Modern Art in Paris 23 (Garland, 1981), n.pag.
- The painting is not titled in the article, but it is described as “l’Arrivée du train de Normandie,” and is identified by Berson as the Art Institute picture. See Ruth Berson, ed., The New Painting: Impressionism, 1874–1886, Documentation, vol. 1, Reviews (Fine Arts Museums of San Francisco/University of Washington Press, 1996), p. 173.
- The painting is not titled in this article but rather is referred to when Fillonneau mentions “dont l’un représente l’arrivée du train de Normandie à la gare Saint-Lazare,” and is identified by Berson as the Art Institute picture. See Ruth Berson, ed., The New Painting: Impressionism, 1874–1886, Documentation, vol.1, Reviews (Fine Arts Museums of San Francisco/University of Washington Press, 1996), p. 146.
- The painting is not titled in the article, but it is described as “une locomotive en gare. Des ombres se silhouettent et passent dans la fume, des lumières courent en lignes fines sur le mouillé des rails,” and it is identified as the Art Institute painting by Daniel Wildenstein, Claude Monet: Biographie et catalogue raisonné, vol. 1, Peintures, 1840–1881 (Bibliothèque des Arts, 1974), p. 304, cat. 440.
- This catalogue was reprinted in Theodore Reff, ed., Miscellaneous Group Exhibitions, Modern Art in Paris 34 (Garland, 1981), n.pag.
- The painting is not titled, but it is described as “une locomotive en gare. Des ombres se silhouettent et passent dans la fume, des lumières courent en lignes fines sur le mouillé des rails,” and is identified by Wildenstein as the Art Institute painting. See Daniel Wildenstein, Claude Monet: Biographie et catalogue raisonné, vol. 1, Peintures, 1840–1881 (Bibliothèque des Arts, 1974), p. 304, cat. 440.
- This catalogue was reprinted in Theodore Reff, ed., World’s Fair of 1900: Retrospective Exhibition of French Art, 1800–1889, Modern Art in Paris 7 (Garland, 1981), n. pag.
- The painting is not titled, but it is described as “ une locomotive en gare. Des ombres se silhouettent et passent dans la fume, des lumières courent en lignes fines sur le mouillé des rails”(p. 272) and is identified by Daniel Wildenstein as the Art Institute painting. See Wildenstein, Claude Monet: Biographie et catalogue raisonné, vol. 1, Peintures, 1840–1881 (Bibliothèque des Arts, 1974), p. 304, cat. 440.
- Republished in Camille Mauclair, Claude Monet, 2nd ed. (Rieder, 1927), pp. 61; pl. 20.
- Reprinted in Art Institute of Chicago, A Guide to the Paintings in the Permanent Collection (Art Institute of Chicago, 1932), p. 186, cat. 589.13.
- This publication reprints (although no catalogue numbers are included) the exhibition catalogue checklist from the 1904 Exposition des peintres impressionnistes in Brussels.
- Republished in Art Institute of Chicago, A Brief Illustrated Guide to the Collections (Art Institute of Chicago, 1941), p. 35; Art Institute of Chicago, A Brief Illustrated Guide to the Collections (Art Institute of Chicago, 1945), p. 37; Art Institute of Chicago, An Illustrated Guide to the Collections of the Art Institute of Chicago (Art Institute of Chicago, 1956), pp. 34–35.
- The plate image is of the Art Institute’s picture; the caption, however, refers to Gare Saint-Lazare (1877), then at the Musée du Louvre, now at the Musée d’Orsay.
- Reprinted in Art Institute of Chicago, Paintings in the Art Institute of Chicago: A Catalogue of the Picture Collection (Art Institute of Chicago, 1968), pp. 279 (ill.), 318–19. See also typescript catalogue supplement, Nov. 15, 1966, p. 41; typescript catalogue supplement, Sept. 15, 1967, p. 41; typescript catalogue supplement, Dec. 18, 1968, p. 61; typescript catalogue supplement, Feb. 10, 1971, p. 77; and typescript catalogue supplement, Sept. 15, 1971, p. 10. Art Institute of Chicago Institutional Archives.
- This article is a reprint and expanded version of Remus Niculeseu, “Georges de Bellio, l’ami des impressionnistes,” Revue roumaine d’histoire de l’art 1, 2 (1964), pp. 209–78.
- This article is a reprint and expanded version of Remus Niculeseu, “Georges de Bellio, l’ami des impressionnistes,” Revue roumaine d’histoire de l’art 1, 2 (1964), pp. 209–78.
- Republished in John Maxon, The Art Institute of Chicago (Abrams, 1977), p. 82 (ill.); and Maxon, The Art Institute of Chicago (Thames & Hudson, 1987), p. 82 (ill.).
- Republished in Diane Kelder, The Great Book of French Impressionism (Artabras, 1997), pp. 161; 185, pl. 179; 389.
- Republished in The Art Institute of Chicago: The Essential Guide, selected by James N. Wood, rev. ed. (Art Institute of Chicago, 2003), p. 155 (ill.).
- The latter was republished as 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, rev. and expanded ed. (Art Institute of Chicago/Yale University Press, 2010; repr. 2013), pp. 19 (ill.); 55; 58 (detail); 59, cat. 22 (ill.); 63; 183.
- See Paul-Louis Durand-Ruel and Flavie Durand-Ruel, Durand-Ruel Archives, to the Art Institute of Chicago, Oct. 5, 2010, curatorial object file, Art Institute of Chicago.
- See Paul-Louis Durand-Ruel and Flavie Durand-Ruel, Durand-Ruel Archives, to the Art Institute of Chicago, Oct. 5, 2010, curatorial object file, Art Institute of Chicago.
- This photograph has been dated October 18, 1911, by the Durand-Ruel Archives. See Paul-Louis Durand-Ruel and Flavie Durand-Ruel, Durand-Ruel Archives to the Art Institute of Chicago, Oct. 5, 2010, curatorial object file, Art Institute of Chicago.
- This transcribed label likely corresponds to the exhibition Munich, Haus der Kunst München, Französische Malerei des 19. Jahrhunderts: Von David bis Cézanne, Oct. 7, 1964–Jan. 6, 1965, cat. 191 (ill.).
- See Don H. Johnson, C. Richard Johnson, Jr., Andrew G. Klein, William A. Sethares, H. Lee, and Ella Hendriks, “A Thread Counting Algorithm for Art Forensics,” 2009 IEEE Thirteenth Digital Signal Processing and Fifth IEEE Signal Processing Education Workshop (IEEE, 2009), pp. 679–84; doi:10.1109/DSP.2009.4786009.
- See Damon M. Conover, John K. Delaney, Paola Ricciardi, and Murray H. Loew, “Towards Automatic Registration of Technical Images of Works of Art,” in Computer Vision and Image.
Entry by Gloria Groom, with research assistance by Genevieve Westerby; Technical Report by Kimberley Muir and Kirk Vuillemot, “Cat. 16 Arrival of the Normandy Train, Gare Saint-Lazare, 1877,” in Monet Paintings and Drawings at the Art Institute of Chicago, ed. Gloria Groom and Jill Shaw, rev. ed. (2014; repr., Art Institute of Chicago, 2026), https://doi.org/10.53269/9780865592698/13.
