Monet first visited Italy’s southern coast with Renoir in December 1883. Shortly thereafter, he returned alone to paint, writing his dealer that working "à deux" was constraining. This scene and The Valley of the Nervia (30.95.251) reflect Monet’s excitement at the new motifs offered by the region’s palm trees and mountains. For this view, he ventured from his hotel in Bordighera and looked across the Bay of Ventimiglia toward the Alps on the French border. The dazzling colors challenged him to "dare to use all the tones of pink and blue," although what he truly needed was a "palette of diamonds and jewels."
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Artwork Details
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Title:Palm Trees at Bordighera
Artist:Claude Monet (French, Paris 1840–1926 Giverny)
Date:1884
Medium:Oil on canvas
Dimensions:25 1/2 x 32in. (64.8 x 81.3cm)
Classification:Paintings
Credit Line:Bequest of Miss Adelaide Milton de Groot (1876-1967), 1967
Accession Number:67.187.87
Inscription: Signed and dated (lower left): Claude Monet 84
[Durand-Ruel, Paris, 1884; stock no. 3254; bought from the artist on May 31; sold the same day to Paul Durand-Ruel]; Paul Durand-Ruel, Paris (from 1884; sold to Durand-Ruel, Paris, in April 1891); [Durand-Ruel, Paris, from 1891; stock no. 934]; Joseph and Georges Durand-Ruel, Paris (1923–24; dépot no. 12787; sold to Durand-Ruel, Paris, on November 5); [Durand-Ruel, Paris, 1924–27; stock no. R 101; sold to Durand-Ruel, New York, on July 4]; [Durand-Ruel, New York, from 1927]; Adelaide Milton de Groot, New York (by 1936–d. 1967; on loan to The Met, 1936)
Pittsburgh. Carnegie Art Galleries. "First Annual Exhibition," November 5, 1896–January 1, 1897, no. 196 (as "Palms of Podighiera").
Manchester City Art Gallery. "Modern French Paintings," 1907–8, no. 83 (as "Palms at Bordighera").
Paris. Durand-Ruel. "Exposition de Paysages par Claude Monet et Renoir," May 18–June 6, 1908, no. 23.
Paris. Durand-Ruel. "Tableaux par Claude Monet," March 2–21, 1914, no. 47.
Paris. Durand-Ruel. "Tableaux par Claude Monet," January 6–19, 1928, no. 41.
London. Arthur Tooth and Sons. "Selected Paintings of All Periods by Claude Monet, 1840–1926," 1939, no. 16.
New York. Durand-Ruel. "Six 19th Century French Artists," March 25–April 30, 1946, no. 4 (as "Jardin à Bordighera," possibly this picture).
New York. Perls Galleries. "Masterpieces from the Collection of Adelaide Milton de Groot," April 14–May 3, 1958, no. 5 (as "Bordighera").
Columbus Gallery of Fine Arts. "Masterpieces from the Adelaide Milton de Groot Collection," December 2, 1958–March 1, 1959, no. 28 (as "Bordighera").
Hanover, N.H. Hood Museum of Art. "Impressionism: 1865-1885," November 8–December 8, 1962, no catalogue?
New York. The Metropolitan Museum of Art. "Paintings from Private Collections: Summer Loan Exhibition," July 12–September 2, 1963, no. 45 (lent by Adelaide Milton de Groot).
Springfield, Mo. Springfield Art Museum. "Masterpiece of the Month," February 1976, no catalogue.
Paris. Centre Culturel du Marais. "Claude Monet au temps de Giverny," April 6–July 17, 1983, no. 3.
Fort Worth. Kimbell Art Museum. "Monet and the Mediterranean," June 8–September 7, 1997, unnumbered cat.
Brooklyn Museum of Art. "Monet and the Mediterranean," October 10, 1997–January 4, 1998, unnumbered cat.
Bordighera. Chiesa Anglicana. "Monet a Bordighera," June–September 1998, unnumbered cat.
Paris. Galeries nationales du Grand Palais. "Méditerranée, de Courbet à Matisse," September 19, 2000–January 15, 2001, no. 51.
National Art Center, Tokyo. "L'Art de Monet et sa posterité," April 7–July 2, 2007, no. 39.
Marseilles. Musée des Beaux-Arts, palais Longchamp. "Le Grand Atelier du Midi: De Van Gogh à Bonnard," June 13–October 13, 2013, no. 10.
Claude Monet. Letter to Durand-Ruel. May 30, 1884 [published in L. Venturi, "Les Archives de l'impressionnisme," 1939, vol. 1, pp. 279–80], lists it among eight pictures he is sending to Durand-Ruel, giving the price as Fr 900.
Georges Lecomte. L'art impressionniste d'après la collection privée de M. Durand-Ruel. Paris, 1892, pp. 101–2, describes a picture, which he calles "Vintimille," possibly this work [see Ref. Wildenstein 1979].
P. Hepp. "Petites Expositions." Chronique des arts et de la curiosité, supplément à la Gazette des beaux-arts no. 22 (May 30, 1908), p. 215.
François Fosca. Claude Monet. Paris, 1927, ill. opp. p. 32 (color), as in the Durand-Ruel collection.
Harry B. Wehle. "A Loan of Paintings." Metropolitan Museum of Art Bulletin 31 (October 1936), p. 210.
Luigina Rossi Bortolatto. L'opera completa di Claude Monet, 1870–1889. Milan, 1966, pp. 105–6, no. 266, ill.
Douglas Cooper. "The Monets in the Metropolitan Museum." Metropolitan Museum Journal 3 (1970), pp. 302–3, 305, fig. 33.
Daniel Wildenstein. Claude Monet: Biographie et catalogue raisonné. Vol. 2, 1882–1886: Peintures. Lausanne, 1979, pp. 29, 122–23, no. 877, ill.
Mahonri Sharp Young. "Letter from the U.S.A., Bag Lady: Part II." Apollo 120 (August 1984), p. 132, fig. 3.
Daniel Wildenstein. Claude Monet: Biographie et catalogue raisonné. Vol. 4, 1899–1926: Peintures. Lausanne, 1985, p. 56 n. 514, p. 79 n. 726.
John House. Monet: Nature into Art. New Haven, 1986, pp. 72, 74, 87, 124, ill. pp. vi–ii (color detail) and colorpl. 110.
Richard Kendall, ed. Monet by Himself. London, 1989, ill. p. 146 (color).
Karin Sagner-Düchting. Claude Monet, 1840–1926: Ein Fest für die Augen. Cologne, 1990, p. 136, ill. p. 138 (color).
John Russell Taylor. Claude Monet: Impressions of France from Le Havre to Giverny. London, 1995, p. 98, ill. (color).
Albert Kostenevich. Hidden Treasures Revealed: Impressionist Masterpieces and Other Important French Paintings Preserved by the State Hermitage Museum, St. Petersburg. Exh. cat.New York, 1995, pp. 150–51, ill.
Katharine Baetjer. European Paintings in The Metropolitan Museum of Art by Artists Born Before 1865: A Summary Catalogue. New York, 1995, p. 476, ill.
Daniel Wildenstein. Monet. Vol. 2, Catalogue raisonné–Werkverzeichnis: Nos. 1–968. 2nd ed. Cologne, 1996, p. 327, no. 877, ill. p. 328 (color).
Daniel Wildenstein. Monet or the Triumph of Impressionism. Vol. 1, 2nd ed. Cologne, 1996, p. 198.
Joachim Pissarro. Monet and the Mediterranean. Exh. cat., Kimbell Art Museum, Fort Worth. New York, 1997, pp. 31, 96, 120, colorpl. 23, cites it as an example of one of Monet's planned motifs of what he called the "somewhat exotic aspects" of Bordighera, noting that the palm was an emblem of the city and that the village was the capital of the palm-leaf industry.
Tito Schiva. "Moreno, Monet, Bordighera: una storia da scoprire." Monet a Bordighera. Ed. Silvia Alborno. Exh. cat., Chiesa Anglicana. Bordighera, Italy, 1998, p. 108, ill. p. 98 (color).
Françoise Cachin inMéditerranée: De Courbet à Matisse. Exh. cat., Galeries nationales du Grand Palais. Paris, 2000, pp. 37, 39, ill. 18 (color).
Jacqueline Henry inMéditerranée: De Courbet à Matisse. Exh. cat., Galeries nationales du Grand Palais. Paris, 2000, p. 203, no. 51, ill.
Eric M. Zafran inClaude Monet (1840–1926): A Tribute to Daniel Wildenstein and Katia Granoff. Exh. cat., Wildenstein & Co., Inc. New York, 2007, p. 137.
Joseph Baillio and Cora Michael inClaude Monet (1840–1926): A Tribute to Daniel Wildenstein and Katia Granoff. Exh. cat., Wildenstein & Co., Inc. New York, 2007, p. 200.
Kyoko Ajioka inL'Art de Monet et sa postérité. Exh. cat., National Art Center, Tokyo. Tokyo, 2007, pp. 93, 262, no. 39, ill. (color).
Marie-Paule Vial inLe Grand Atelier du Midi. Exh. cat., Musée des Beaux-Arts, palais Longchamp, Marseilles. Paris, 2013, p. 279, no. 10, ill. p. 60 (color).
Richard Thomson inLe Grand Atelier du Midi. Exh. cat., Musée des Beaux-Arts, palais Longchamp, Marseilles. Paris, 2013, p. 109.
Julia Knöschke inImpressionism: The Art of Landscape. Ed. Ortrud Westheider and Michael Philipp. Exh. cat., Museum Barberini, Potsdam. Munich, 2017, p. 224.
Richard Shiff inCezanne to Malevich: Arcadia to Abstraction. Ed. Judit Geskó. Exh. cat., Museum of Fine Arts, Budapest. Budapest, 2021, pp. 34, 40 n. 22, fig. 2 (color).
At the beginning of 1884, Monet traveled to the Italian Riviera and painted a number of the local sites. This picture, like The Valley of the Nervia (The Met 30.95.251; W881), was painted during that trip, at Bordighera, a town near the Bay of Ventimiglia.
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