This brisk early seascape served as a sketch for a large-scale painting—now lost—that Monet exhibited in 1868 at the Salon, the annual state-sponsored exhibition of art in Paris. He likely painted it during a visit to his family at Le Havre, the Normandy port town where he had grown up, identifiable by the jetty and lighthouse at right. Monet gave the sketch to his friend, a journalist named Antoine Lafont, who served as a witness at Monet’s marriage in June 1870—hence the inscription at lower left: “À son ami Lafont, 1870.”
Details
- Artist Name: Claude Monet (French, 1840-1926)
- Title: The Entrance to the Port of Le Havre (formerly The Entrance to the Port of Honfleur)
- Date: c. 1867-1868
- Medium: Oil on canvas
- Dimensions: 19-3/4 x 24-1/8 in. (50.2 x 61.3 cm)
- Credit Line: Norton Simon Art Foundation
- Accession Number: M.1999.2.2.P
- Copyright: © Norton Simon Art Foundation
Object Information
Antoine Lafont, Paris.
[Durand-Ruel, Paris, c.1900].
(sale, Paris, Hôtel Drouot, 28 June 1943, lot 18, ill., as Dieppe: Bateaux de pêche sortant du port to);
Mettey.
Private Collection, Paris.
[Anstalt für Kunst und Kultur/Wildenstein, by 1952? - consigned 29 January 1969 to];
[Reid & Lefevre, London, sale no. 8089, returned 1969 to];
[[Anstalt für Kunst und Kultur/Wildenstein].
[Galerie Castiglione, Schaan, Lichtenstein, offered May 1969 and subsequently sold November-December 1969, through [Reid & Lefevre], London, as L'Entrée du Port de Honfleur, to];
The Norton Simon Foundation, (F.1969.48.P), sold 1999 to;
Norton Simon Art Foundation.
Claude Monet
- Paris, Galerie des Beaux-Arts, 1952-06-19 to 1952-07-17
- The Hague, Gemeentemuseum, 1952-07-24 to 1952-09-22
Claude Monet, The Early Years: From British Collections in aid of The Police Dependants' Trust
- London, Reid & Lefevre Gallery, 1969-05-08 to 1969-06-07
[on loan]
- Phoenix, Phoenix Art Museum, 1970-02-20 to 1970-06-20
[on loan]
- Los Angeles County Museum of Art, 1970-06-22 to 1971-05
[on loan]
- Minneapolis, Minneapolis Institute of Arts, 1971-05 to 1972-10
Three Centuries of French Art: Selections from The Norton Simon, Inc. Museum of Art and The Norton Simon Foundation_1
- California Palace of the Legion of Honor, 1973-05-03 to 1976-06-15
- Wildenstein, Daniel, Monet, no. 3 p. 19
- Martini, Alberto, Monet, no. XI p. 12
- The Connoisseur,
- Wildenstein, Daniel, Claude Monet: Biographie et catalogue raisonné, 1974, no. 87 p. 161
- Masterpieces from the Norton Simon Museum, 1989, p. 128
- Wildenstein, Daniel, Monet: Catalogue Raisonné/Werkverzeichnis, 1996, no. 87
- Brettell, Richard R. and Stephen F. Eisenman, Nineteenth-Century Art in the Norton Simon Museum, volume 1, 2006,
- Campbell, Sara, Collector Without Walls: Norton Simon and His Hunt for the Best, 2010, cat. 708 p. 330
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