Harvard Art Museums / Fogg Museum | Busch-Reisinger Museum | Arthur M. Sackler Museum

Between 1899 and 1901, Monet visited London three times, for a total of more than seven months. He rented the same room on the sixth floor of the Savoy Hotel on the Victoria Embankment and painted the view from his window of south London and the Thames. The resultant works — more than a hundred paintings and twenty pastels — formed the largest series he had produced to that date. Here, as in other works, he layers blue, green, and pink tones on a cool backdrop, offering an atmospheric view of the riverfront. This oil was included in an exhibition of his views of the Thames at the Galerie Durand-Ruel in Paris in 1904. René Gimpel, a prominent art dealer in Paris, visited Monet at his home years later and quoted him in his diary as having said: “I adore London; it’s a mass, a whole, and it’s so simple. But what I love more than anything in London is the fog.”

Object Number

1979.329

People

Claude Monet, French (Paris, France 1840 - 1926 Giverny, France)

Title

Charing Cross Bridge: Fog on the Thames

Other Titles

Alternate Title: Charing Cross Bridge, Brouillard sur la Tamise
Original Language Title: Le Soleil sur la Tamise à Londres, brouillard

Classification

Paintings

Work Type

painting

Date

1903

Culture

French

Persistent Link

https://hvrd.art/o/222214

Medium

Oil on canvas

Dimensions

73.7 x 92.4 cm (29 x 36 3/8 in.)
frame: 90.5 x 109.9 x 7 cm (35 5/8 x 43 1/4 x 2 3/4 in.)

Inscriptions and Marks

• stamp: back of frame, black stamp on all four sides and stretcher bar: 30W
• inscription: back of frame, left edge, black ink: 6492[?]
• label: back of frame, top, label with blue edges, inscribed in black ink: Cadre no. 3
• inscription: back of frame, right edge, blue chalk: 6492 [double underline]
• stamp: Back of stretcher, right edge, black stencil: 30
• inscription: back of stretcher, upper right, inscription on cloth tape in black ink: MONET, C. / 605.66 / Anonymous Loan
• inscription: back of stretcher, upper right, pinkish-tan label, inscribed in brown ink: Monet [printed:] No. [inscribed:] 4813 [Durand-Ruel New York stock no.] / Le soleil s/ la Tamise / à Londres, Charing / Cross 1903 M4
• label: stretcher bar, cream label, inscribed in brown ink: Le Soleil sur la Tamise / à Londres Brouillard
• label: stretcher bar, cream label, inscribed in brown ink: Monet n. 11864 [Durand-Ruel Paris stock no.] / Le soleil sur la Tamise / à Londres / (Brouillard) / 1903
• inscription: stretcher bar, blue chalk: 9330
• inscription: stretcher bar, graphite: M29[?] / 128[?] / 6P.#2[?]
• inscription: stretcher bar, blue chalk: Box / 4
• inscription: lower right: Claude Monet 1903

Credit Line

Harvard Art Museums/Fogg Museum, Gift of Mrs. Henry Lyman

Accession Year

1979

Object Number

1979.329

Division

European and American Art

Contact

am_europeanamerican@harvard.edu

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Par Valentine Buvat, Turner, Whistler, Monet: Peindre l'essence des choses, Tate Modern, p. 21

Galeries Durand-Ruel, Claude Monet: Vues de la Tamise a Londres (1902-1904), exh. cat. (Paris, 1904), p. 9, cat. no. 7

Gustave Geffroy, Claude Monet, sa vie et son oeuvre, G. Crès et Cie (Paris, France, 1924), p. 310

Daniel Wildenstein, Claude Monet: Biographie et Catalogue Raisonné, La Bibliothèque des Arts (Lausanne, Switzerland, 1974 - 1991), vol. IV, p. 168, cat. no. 1554

Caroline A. Jones, Modern Art at Harvard: The Formation of the Nineteenth- and Twentieth-Century Collections of the Harvard University Art Museums (New York, NY and Cambridge, MA, Harvard University Art Museums and Abbeville Press, 1985). With an essay by John Coolidge and a preface by John M. Rosenfield. To accompany the inaugural exhibition at the Sackler Museum, Oct 21 1985 - Jan 5 1986, p. 6, fig. 1, ill. (color)

Jean C. Harris and Stephen Kern, Lasting Impressions: French and American Impressionism from New England Museums, exh. cat., Museum of Fine Arts, Boston (Springfield, MA, 1988), p. 19, cat. no. 11, repr.

Grace Seiberling, Monet in London, exh. cat., High Museum of Art and University of Washington Press (Seattle, 1988)

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)

Eric Shanes, Impressionist London, Abbeville Press (New York, NY, 1994), p. 130-131, no. 105, repr. p. 130

Katharine A. Lochnan, Turner Whistler Monet: Impressionist Visions, exh. cat., Art Gallery of Ontario (Toronto, Ontario, 2004), no. 73, repr. in color

Claude Monet 1840-1926, exh. cat., Réunion des Musées Nationaux / Musée d'Orsay (Paris, 2010), cat. no. 137, repr., p. 266, checklist p. 369

Greg Stone, Artful Business: 50 Lessons from Creative Geniuses (Boston, 2016), p. 30, ill. (color)

Eight Art Events to get to this Month, Apollo (January 10, 2017), online feature, https://www.apollo-magazine.com/top-art-shows-january-2017, accessed May 5, 2017, repr.

Ulf Küster, ed., Monet: Light, Shadow, and Reflection, exh. cat., Fondation Beyeler (Basel, 2017), cat. no. 124, repr. p. 124

Claude Monet, Vues de la Tamise à Londres, 1902-1904, Durand-Ruel Paris, 05/09/1904 - 06/04/1904

Exhibition of Paintings by Claude Monet, Durand-Ruel [New York], 01/04/1922 - 01/21/1922

Modern Art at Harvard, Bunkamura Museum of Art, Tokyo, 07/31/1999 - 09/26/1999; Takamatsu City Museum of Art, Kagawa, 10/09/1999 - 11/14/1999; Matsuzakaya Art Museum, Nagoya, 12/02/1999 - 12/27/1999; Oita City Museum, Oita, 01/06/2000 - 02/06/2000; Museum of Modern Art, Ibaraki, Ibaraki, 02/11/2000 - 03/26/2000

Turner, Whistler, Monet, Art Gallery of Ontario, Toronto, 06/12/2004 - 09/12/2004; Grand Palais, Paris, 10/16/2004 - 01/16/2005; Tate Britain, London, 02/12/2005 - 05/15/2005

Claude Monet 1840-1926, Galeries Nationales du Grand Palais, Paris, 09/22/2010 - 01/24/2011

Ancient to Modern, Harvard Art Museums, Cambridge, 01/31/2012 - 06/01/2013

32Q: 2700 Impressionism, Harvard Art Museums, Cambridge, 11/16/2014 - 10/11/2016; Harvard Art Museums, Cambridge, 07/14/2017 - 01/01/2050

Monet: Light, Shadow, and Reflection , Fondation Beyeler, Riehen / Basel, 01/22/2017 - 05/28/2017

Google Art Project

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