Palazzo Contarini

Monet came to Venice only once, in the autumn of 1908, when he was 68 and his own eyesight was starting to fail. He and his wife Alice stayed about two months, and each day he set himself up in front of the same palaces at the same hours, following the light as it moved. This is one of two canvases he made of the Palazzo Contarini, an old house on the south side of the Grand Canal. He has pushed right up to the front of it, so the wall fills the frame and the carved stone seems to dissolve into water and reflection. Like all the Venice pictures, he began it on the spot but only finished it back home at Giverny, working from memory long after the trip was over.