Ecke eines Ateliers

This is about as far from the Monet of water lilies as you can get: a dim studio corner, heavy curtains, a rug, and weapons hanging on the wall, all painted indoors in artificial light. It is also one of the earliest Monet canvases to survive, from 1861, when he was barely 20 and still had to prove to his family that painting was a real prospect. He probably began it in Le Havre and reworked it in Paris as a kind of showpiece of what he could already do. That same year his luck ran out in the conscription draw and he was sent to serve with the army in Algeria. Everything he became known for, the open air and the daylight, is nowhere in this careful, shadowed room.