The Customs House at Varengeville
1897
Medium
Oil on canvas
Dimensions
65.6 × 92.8 cm (25 13/16 × 36 1/2 in.); Framed: 83.5 × 110.2 × 5.7 cm (32 7/8 × 43 3/8 × 2 1/4 in.)
Classification
painting
Department
Painting and Sculpture of Europe
Museum
Art Institute of Chicago
Accession Number
16542
Rights
Public Domain
About this artwork
Claude Monet painted the customs house at Varengeville, on the Normandy coast of France, four times in 1882 and four more times in 1897. On each occasion he chose a similar vantage looking down on the small structure, which appears to grow out of the cliffside. The dimensions of this version are nearly identical to those of the other three canvases from the second visit. Here, Monet increased the amount of white in his paints to capture more nuanced atmospheric effects. He also experimented with...
About the Artist
Claude Monet · 1840–1926
Claude Monet, born Oscar-Claude Monet on November 14, 1840, in Paris and raised in Le Havre, Normandy, began his artistic journey as a successful teenage caricaturist. His formal training started at the Le Havre secondary school of the arts in 1851, where he received his first drawing lessons from Jacques-François Ochard. Around 1858, he met Eugène Boudin, who became his pivotal mentor, introducin...