Monet on his Studio Boat

About this work

In the summer of 1874 at Argenteuil, Manet, Monet and Renoir painted side by side. Monet had converted a boat into a floating studio so he could paint the Seine from the water; Manet painted him inside it, with his wife Camille sitting in the shade of the cabin. It is a painting of a painter at work — Manet, who refused all his life to exhibit with the Impressionists, recording from outside those who did.

A broad, narrow format, 100 by 50 cm — the boat stretches across the panel as it does across the water. One of the earliest works in the exhibition, from the spring of 2010.