Étretat: The Beach and the Porte d'Amont

At the end of January 1883 Monet took a room in a seafront hotel at Étretat, on the Normandy coast, and stayed about three weeks, working toward the one-man show his dealer Durand-Ruel was opening in Paris in March. This canvas, signed and dated 83, looks along the curve of the beach toward the Porte d'Amont, the arch where the cliff steps out into the sea. Fishing boats lie hauled up on the shingle with small figures among them, and two boats out on the water carry red sails. Durand-Ruel bought the picture that December. In 1893 it passed to Antonin Personnaz, a collector from Bayonne who from 1907 took up the autochrome, the early colour photograph made by the Lumière brothers, and found its grainy dots close to what the Impressionists had done in paint. His bequest brought it to the national museums in 1937.