Banquises (1893)

Monet, Claude (1840-1926)

Banquises (Ice Floes)
1893
Oil on canvas, 66 x 100.3 cm
Metropolitan Museum of Art, New York

The prolonged freeze and heavy snowfalls in the winter of 189293 inspired Monet to capture their effects on the Seine in a series of paintings for which he chose a vantage point not far from his home in Giverny. The river had frozen in mid-January but began to thaw on the 23rd; the following day, in a letter to his dealer, Durand-Ruel, Monet lamented that “the thaw came too soon for me . . . the results—just four or five canvases and they are far from complete.” By the end of February, however, he had finished more than a dozen paintings, including this view of the melting ice floes. (MET)

See also:

• Giverny (France)