Kanal in Amsterdam

Monet already knew this country. In 1871, with the Franco-Prussian war just over, he spent months at Zaandam north of Amsterdam painting the waterfront. He came back to Amsterdam in 1874, the year the group exhibition that gave Impressionism its name opened in Paris, and worked up about a dozen canvases along the canals. The tower closing this view is the Zuiderkerk, seen from the Groenburgwal, with the Staalmeestersbrug crossing in front of it, a stretch of the old city you can still stand in. The dating of these Dutch pictures is an unfinished argument among specialists, with individual canvases moved between the 1871 stay and the 1874 one. This one has stayed in private hands.