Customs House. Afternoon Effect

All through the 19th century, French customs officers walked the Channel cliffs watching the movement of ships, and along the way they built themselves small huts to sit out the bad weather. In 1882 Monet spent a long stay at Pourville, a hamlet near Dieppe, and on his walks he came across one of these shelters, the customs post at Petit Ailly on the cliff at Varengeville. It became one of his favourite motifs. Over several stays he painted it again and again at different times of day, following how the light and the air changed around the same little building, and the museum that owns this canvas counts 29 versions. This one is the afternoon. What the painting shows is also what explains its address. The French state bought it at auction in 1985 and deposited it in Bordeaux, at the national customs museum, which tells the story of the service whose men once kept watch from that hut.