The J. Paul Getty Museum

Wheatstacks, Snow Effect, Morning (Meules, Effet de Neige, Le Matin)

Object Details

Title:

Wheatstacks, Snow Effect, Morning (Meules, Effet de Neige, Le Matin)

Artist/Maker:

Claude Monet (French, 1840 - 1926)

Culture:

French

Place:

France (Place Created)

Date:

1891

Medium:

Oil on canvas

Object Number:

95.PA.63

Dimensions:

64.8 × 100.3 cm (25 1/2 × 39 1/2 in.)

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Object Description

In the fall of 1890, Impressionist Claude Monet arranged to have the wheatstacks near his home left out over the winter. By the following summer he had painted them at least thirty times, at different times throughout the seasons. Wheatstacks was Monet's first series and the first in which he concentrated on a single subject, differentiating pictures only by color, touch, composition, and lighting and weather conditions. He said, "For me a landscape hardly exists at all as a landscape, because its appearance is constantly changing; but it lives by virtue of its surroundings, the air and the light which vary continually."

After beginning outdoors, Monet reworked each painting in his studio to create the color harmonies that unify each canvas. The pinks in the sky echo the snow's reflections, and the blues of the wheatstacks' shadows are found in the wintry light shining on the stacks, in the houses' roofs, and in the snowy earth. With raised, broken brushstrokes, Monet captured nuances of light and created a solid, geometric structure that prevents the surface from simply melting into blobs. The wheatstacks are solid forms, and, while the outlying houses are indecipherable close-up, they are clear from a distance.

Provenance
Provenance
1891

Boussod, Valadon & Cie. (Paris, France), purchased from the artist, 1891; sold to Lonquety, 1891.
Source: Getty Research Institute, Goupil & Cie./Boussod, Valadon & Cie. Stock Books, Book 12, no. 21179, p. 188, row 9.

1891 -

Lonquety (Paris, France)

1968

Marbeau (Paris, France)

-

Durand-Ruel & Cie (Paris, France), sold to Acquavella Galleries, Inc.
Source: phone conversation with Acquavella representative, April 24, 2001.

- 1969

Acquavella Galleries, Inc. (New York, New York), sold to John Thomson Dorrance, Jr., 1969.

1969 - 1989

John Thompson Dorrance, Jr., American, 1919 - 1989 (Pennsylvania) [sold, Dorrance sale, Sotheby's, New York, October 18, 1989, lot 32, to Henryk de Kwiatkowski.]

1989 - 1995

Henryk de Kwiatkowski (New York, New York), sold through Apollo Art Advisory Services (London, England) to the J. Paul Getty Museum, 1995.

Exhibitions
Exhibitions
Exposition d'oeuvres de Claude Monet (1840-1927): Oeuvres de 1891 à 1919 (April 2 to April 30, 1936)
  • Galerie Paul Rosenberg (Paris), April 2 to April 30, 1936
Claude Monet (October 27 to November 28, 1976)
  • Acquavella Galleries, Inc. (New York), October 27 to November 28, 1976
Claude Monet: Philadelphia (June 20 to August 30, 1987)
  • Philadelphia Museum of Art (Philadelphia), June 20 to August 30, 1987
Bibliography
Bibliography

Exposition d'oeuvres de Claude Monet (1840-1927). Oeuvres de 1891 à 1919, exh. cat. (Paris: Paul Rosenberg, 1936), unpaginated, no. 2.

Rewald, John. "Theo van Gogh, Goupil, and the Impressionists. II." Gazette des beaux-arts, 6th ser., 81, no. 1249 (February 1973), p. 101, app. 1.

Wildenstein, Daniel. Claude Monet: Biographie et catalogue raisonné. 5 vols. (Lausanne and Paris: La bibliothèque des arts; Wildenstein Institute, 1974-1991), vol. 3 (1979), pp. 140-41, no. 1276, ill.

Claude Monet, exh. cat. (New York: Acquavella Galleries, 1976), no. 53, ill.

Seiberling, Grace. Monet's Series (New York and London: Garland, 1981), pp. 93, 357-58, app., no. 19.

House, John. "Monet in 1890." In Aspects of Monet: A Symposium on the Artist's Life and Times. John Rewald and Frances Weitzenhoffer, eds. (New York: Harry N. Abrams, 1984), p. 138n20.

Sotheby's, New York. The Collection of John T. Dorrance, Jr.: Important Impressionist, Modern, American and European Paintings. October 18-19, 1989, unpaginated, lot 32, ill.

Tucker, Paul Hayes. Monet in the '90s: The Series Paintings, exh. cat. (Boston: Museum of Fine Arts, with Yale University Press, 1989), pp. 274n34, 275n36.

Sallis, John. "Monet's Grainstacks: Shades of Time." Tema Celeste, no. 30 (March-April 1991), p. 67n12.

Tucker, Paul Hayes. Claude Monet: Life and Art (New Haven and London: Yale University Press, 1995), pp. 141-42, pl. 161.

Wildenstein, Daniel. Monet or the Triumph of Impressionism. 4 vols. Vol. 3, Catalogue raisonne, nos. 969- 1595 (Paris: Wildenstein Institute, with Taschen, 1996), pp. 489, 491, no. 1276, ill.

Wildenstein, Daniel. Monet, or the Triumph of Impressionism. 4 vols. Vol. 1, Monet, or the Triumph of Impressionism (Paris: Wildenstein Institute, with Taschen, 1996), p. 275.

"Acquisitions/1995." The J. Paul Getty Museum Journal 24 (1996), p. 116, no. 46, ill.

The J. Paul Getty Museum Handbook of the Collections. 4th ed. (Los Angeles: J. Paul Getty Museum, 1997), p. 140, ill.

Gribbon, Deborah. "Selected Acquisitions Made by the J. Paul Getty Museum, 1995-97." Burlington Magazine 139, no. 1136 (November 1997), p. 821.

Jaffé, David. Summary Catalogue of European Paintings in the J. Paul Getty Museum (Los Angeles: J. Paul Getty Museum, 1997), p. 88, ill.

Fredericksen, Burton B., et al. Masterpieces of the J. Paul Getty Museum: Paintings (Los Angeles: J. Paul Getty Museum, 1997), pp. 108-9, no. 59., ill., entry by Denise Allen.

Walsh, John, and Deborah Gribbon. The J. Paul Getty Museum and Its Collections: A Museum for the New Century (Los Angeles: J. Paul Getty Museum, 1997), p. 132, ill.

Sallis, John. Shades-of Painting at the Limit (Bloomington and Indianapolis: Indiana University Press, 1998), p. 37n32.

Sturgis, Alexander, and Hollis Clayson, eds. Understanding Paintings: Themes in Art Explored and Explained (New York: Watson-Guptill, 2000), pp. 16, 167, 265, ill.

Lyons, Lisa, ed. Departures: 11 Artists at the Getty, exh. cat. (Los Angeles: J. Paul Getty Museum, 2000), pp. 16-17, ill.

The J. Paul Getty Museum Handbook of the Collections. 6th ed. (Los Angeles: J. Paul Getty Museum, 2001), pp. 138-39, ill.

Allen, Denise, et al. Masterpieces of Painting in the J. Paul Getty Museum. Rev. ed. (Los Angeles: J. Paul Getty Museum, with Thames & Hudson, 2003), p. 104, no. 56, ill., entry by Charlotte Eyerman.

Stuckey, Charles. "The Predications and Implications of Monet's Series." In The Repeating Image: Multiples in French Painting from David to Matisse, exh. cat. Eik Kahng, ed. (Baltimore: Walters Art Museum, with Yale University Press, 2007), pp. 87-88, fig. 11.

The J. Paul Getty Museum Handbook of the Collections. 7th ed. (Los Angeles: J. Paul Getty Museum, 2007), pp. 144-45, ill.

Acquavella: The First Ninety Years (New York: Acquavella Galleries, 2012), p. 366, 367, ill.

Fredericksen, Burton B. The Burdens of Wealth: Paul Getty and His Museum (Bloomington: Archway Publishing, 2015), pp. 217, 329.

Dejardin, Ian A. C. "Dazzle and Kick: The Life of David Milne." In David Milne: Modern Painting, exh. cat. Sarah Milroy and Ian A. C. Dejardin, eds. (London: Dulwich Picture Gallery, with Philip Wilson Publishers, 2018), p. 18, ill.

Education Resources
Education Resources

Education Resource

Subjects

Grades

Format

Looking at Landscapes Lesson 2: Verbal Descriptions

Students practice their speaking skills while describing a landscape scene for a partner to draw.

Visual Arts; English–Language Arts; ESL (English as a Second Language)

Adult Learners

Single Class Lesson

Landscapes, Classical to Modern

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