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Painted portrait of a fair skinned older lady smiling, with a small terrier dog in her lap.

An older lady faces us with her head tilted slightly to the left, looking left. Her hair is black, and she wears black, rendered with strokes of colors throughout, with a white bow tie around her neck. Her face is painted in warmer hues, she smiles with mouth closed, textured brushstrokes define her facial features and wrinkles. Her blue eyes match the background colors. Her hands are not evident, but the head of a calm light brown terrier dog sits in the lower right, with large brown eyes looking at us. Loose textured strokes of light blues make the background.

Gallery Text

During his two-month residence at a hotel-restaurant in Pourville, a small fishing village in Normandy, Monet painted portraits of the inn’s proprietors, Paul-Antoine and Eugénie Graff (1819–1891). Depicted in a similar manner and on canvases of the same dimensions, the pendant portraits were complemented by a third painting, a still life of Mme Paul’s signature dish, butter cakes, which would have hung to the left of the two portraits. Both sitters look toward the cakes; only Eugénie’s pet terrier, Follette, gazes out at the viewer. Monet reserved the painting of portraits for his closest associates; the three works for the Graff family therefore represent a charming gesture of friendship. He favored this mode of portraiture in the 1880s, with its swift execution and closely cropped views of the sitters’ heads, describing it in one of his letters as a “jack in the box” type. The cursory brushwork of the background and the short, narrow strokes used in the face recall the artist’s work in pastel.

Identification and Creation

Object Number
1955.98
People
Claude Monet, French (Paris, France 1840 - 1926 Giverny, France)
Title
Eugénie Graff (Madame Paul)
Other Titles
Alternate Title: Madame Paul / Madame Paul - Patissière à Pourville
Classification
Paintings
Work Type
painting
Date
1882
Culture
French
Persistent Link
https://hvrd.art/o/228748

Location

Location
Level 1, Room 1220, European Art, 19th–20th century, Collection of Maurice Wertheim, Class of 1906
View this object's location on our interactive map

Physical Descriptions

Medium
Oil on canvas
Dimensions
65 x 54.5 cm (25 9/16 x 21 7/16 in.)
framed: 91 x 81 x 9.5 cm (35 13/16 x 31 7/8 x 3 3/4 in.)
Inscriptions and Marks
  • Signed: l.l.: Claude Monet

Provenance

Recorded Ownership History
Claude Monet; to Paul Graff (husband of the sitter), 1882. [Knoedler & Co., Inc.]. [Durand-Ruel], sold; to Jules Strauss, Paris, 1900, sold [through Hôtel Drouot, Paris, May 3, 1902, no. 38]; to [Durand-Ruel, Paris]. A. A. Hebrad, Paris, 1905. Prince de Wagram (Louis-Alexandre Berthier), Paris. [Durand-Ruel, Paris, 1908]. [H. O. Miethke, Vienna, 1910], sold; to Karl Wittgenstein, Vienna, 1910, bequest; to Paul Wittgenstein, 1913, sold; [through Stuttgarter Kunstkabinett, May 18-20, 1954]. Jacques Seligmann, sold; to Wertheim Fund, Inc., May 16, 1955 as a gift to the Fogg Art Museum; hung at Mrs. Wertheim's house as part of Wertheim Collection, to which she held lifetime interest.

Acquisition and Rights

Credit Line
Harvard Art Museums/Fogg Museum, Gift of The Wertheim Fund, Inc.
Accession Year
1955
Object Number
1955.98
Division
European and American Art
Contact
am_europeanamerican@harvard.edu
Permissions

THIS WORK HAS SIGNIFICANT LOAN RESTRICTIONS BY THE TERMS OF ITS ACQUISITION TO THE HARVARD ART MUSEUMS.

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Publication History

  • Entwicklung des Impressionismus in Malerei und Plastik, Secession (Vienna, Austria, 1903), no. 38
  • Desmond Fitzgerald, "Claude Monet: Master of Impressionism", Brush and Pencil (March 1905), no. XV, pl. 41
  • Claude Monet, Master Impressionist, Copley Society (Boston, MA, 1905)
  • Georges Grappe, Claude Monet (Paris, France, 1909), pp. 26, repr. p. 28
  • Manet-Monet, exh. cat., H. O. Miethke Gallery (Vienna, Austria, 1910), no. 26
  • Gustave Geffroy, Claude Monet, sa vie, son temps, son oeuvre, G. Crès et Cie (Paris, France, 1922), pp. 305-306
  • Georges Grappe, Monet, Plon (Paris, France, 1941), p. 16, repr. p. 36
  • Oscar Reuterswärd, Monet, en konstnarshistorik, Albert Bonniers Förlag (Stockholm, Sweden, 1948), p. 143
  • Georges Besson, Claude Monet (1840-1926), Les Editions Braun & Cie. (Paris, France, 1949), p. 41
  • Claude Roger-Marx, Monet, Editions Jean Marguerat (Lausanne, Switzerland, 1949), repr. as pl. 38
  • Frederick B. Deknatel, "Madame Paul", Fogg Art Museum Annual Report, 1955, Fogg Art Museum (Cambridge, MA, 1955), repr. inside front cover
  • Howard Devree, "By French Masters: Memorable Loan Show in Philadelphia", The New York Times (New York, NY, July 7 1957), p. 70, p. 70
  • Denis Rouart and Leon Degand, Claude Monet, Skira (New York, NY, 1958), p. 60, repr.
  • William Chapin Seitz, Claude Monet, Harry N. Abrams, Inc. (New York, NY, 1960), pp. 31, 116
  • J. P. Hoschedé, Claude Monet, ce mal connu (Geneva, Switzerland, 1960), vol. I, p. 119
  • The Maurice Wertheim Catalogue: Modern French Art-- Monet to Picasso, exh. cat., North Carolina Museum of Art (Raleigh, NC, 1960), p. 30, repr. p. 31
  • Germain Seligman, Merchants of Art, exh. cat., Appleton-Century-Crofts (New York, NY, 1961), pl. 91
  • The Maurice Wertheim Collection: Manet to Picasso, exh. cat., The Museum of Fine Arts, Houston (Houston, TX, 1962), pp. 32, 34
  • René Gimpel, Journal d’un collectionneur: marchand et tableaux, Calmann Lévy (Paris, 1963), p. 181
  • The Maurice Wertheim Collection, exh. cat., Maine State Museum (Augusta, ME, 1972), no. 22
  • Daniel Wildenstein, Claude Monet: Biographie et Catalogue Raisonné, La Bibliothèque des Arts (Lausanne, Switzerland, 1974 - 1991), vol. 2, no. 745, vol. 5, p. 8
  • Hommage à Claude Monet, exh. cat., Grand Palais (Paris, France, 1980), pp. 235-236
  • Richard Thomson, "'Les quat' pattes': The Image of the Dog in Late Nineteenth-Century French Art", Art History (September 1982), vol. 5, no. 3, pp. 323-337, p. 327
  • Melissa McQuillan, Impressionist Portraits, Little, Brown & Company (Boston, MA, 1986), repr. in color, p. 169 and text
  • John O'Brian, Degas to Matisse: the Maurice Wertheim Collection, Harry N. Abrams, Inc. and Fogg Art Museum (New York, NY and Cambridge, MA, 1988), no. 6, pp. 52-53, repr. in color p. 53
  • Edgar Peters Bowron, European Paintings Before 1900 in the Fogg Art Museum: A Summary Catalogue including Paintings in the Busch-Reisinger Museum, Harvard University Art Museums (Cambridge, MA, 1990), p. 121; repr. as no. 355
  • The Maurice Wertheim Collection and Selected Impressionist and Post-Impressionist Paintings and Drawings in the Fogg Art Museum, exh. cat., Harry N. Abrams, Inc. (New York, NY, 1990), repr. in color, no. 9, p. 49
  • [Reproduction only], Journal of the American Veterinary Medical Association, (December 1, 1996)., repr. on cover
  • Judit Geskó and Péter Molnos, "Histoire des collections d'oeuvres impressionnistes françaises en Hongrie", Monet et ses Amis (Budapest, 2003), p. 17
  • Dr. Tobias G. Natter, Die Galerie Miethke: Eine Kunsthandlung im Zentrum der Moderne, exh. cat., Jüdisches Museum der Stadt Wien (Vienna, Austria, 2003-2004), p. 153, repr. in color
  • Michael Clarke and Richard Thomson, Monet: The Seine and the Sea 1878-1883, exh. cat., National Galleries of Scotland (Edinburgh, Scotland, 2003), no. 63, repr. in color
  • Elizabeth M. Rudy, "Researching the Wertheim Collection at the Harvard Art Museums", Collections: A Journal for Museum and Archives Professionals (Summer 2014), Vol. 10, No. 3, pp. 301-6
  • Agnes Husslein-Arco and Stephan Koja, ed., Looking at Monet: The Great Impressionist and his Influence on Austrian Art, exh. cat., Hirmer (Vienna, 2014), ill. p. 158

Exhibition History

  • Manet-Monet, Galerie Miethke, Vienna, 01/01/1910 - 12/31/1910
  • The Maurice Wertheim Collection: Modern French Art--Monet to Picasso, North Carolina Museum of Art, Raleigh, 06/17/1960 - 09/04/1960
  • The Maurice Wertheim Collection: Manet to Picasso, The Museum of Fine Arts, Houston, Houston, 06/13/1962 - 09/02/1962
  • The Maurice Wertheim Collection, Rhode Island School of Design Museum, Providence, 09/03/1968 - 09/22/1968
  • The Maurice Wertheim Collection, Maine State Museum, Augusta, 06/01/1972 - 09/01/1972
  • Manet to Matisse: The Maurice Wertheim Collection, IBM Gallery of Science and Art, New York, 04/09/1985 - 05/25/1985
  • The Maurice Wertheim Collection and Selected Impressionist and Post-Impressionist Paintings and Drawings in the Fogg Art Museum, Isetan Department Store, Tokyo, 03/01/1990 - 04/10/1990; Yamaguchi Prefectural Museum of Art, 04/14/1990 - 05/13/1990
  • Monet: The Seine and the Sea, National Gallery of Scotland, Edinburgh, 08/02/2003 - 10/26/2003
  • Re-View: S427 Impressionist & Postimpressionist Art, Harvard Art Museums/Arthur M. Sackler Museum, Cambridge, 08/02/2008 - 06/18/2011
  • 32Q: 1220 Wertheim, Harvard Art Museums, Cambridge, 11/16/2014 - 01/01/2050

Subjects and Contexts

  • Google Art Project

Related Works

Verification Level

This record has been reviewed by the curatorial staff but may be incomplete. Our records are frequently revised and enhanced. For more information please contact the Division of European and American Art at am_europeanamerican@harvard.edu