Antibes, Afternoon Effect

In January 1888 Monet wrote to Alice Hoschedé, his companion and later his wife, describing more or less what is in this picture. He was painting the town of Antibes, he said, a little fortified town all golden in the sun, standing out against beautiful blue and pink mountains and the eternally snowy range of the Alps. The title adds the hour, afternoon. He had come south to the Riviera for the first months of the year, partly to escape the dreariest weeks in the north and partly because his dealer wanted bright, sunny seascapes. Monet signed and dated this one 88 at the lower left, and it sold fast. On 4 June 1888 he let it go to the Paris firm Boussod, Valadon and Company, and on 27 June they sold it to a Madame Ellissen in Paris. By 1892 it was in Boston, with Samuel Dacre Bush, who gave it to the Museum of Fine Arts in 1927.