La Corniche near Monaco

When Monet painted this in 1884, the Corniche was a narrow track over the hills. Today it is the main road between Nice and Monaco. The sun is high, and the one walker on the path throws only a short shadow. Beyond him, white houses line the shore at the foot of a steep blue mountain, and the sea to the left is flat and glittering. Monet signed the canvas with the year, 84, in the bottom corner. It came to the Rijksmuseum early, in 1900, as a gift from a Hague collector, Baroness van Lynden-van Pallandt. At that point, the museum notes, the painter's work was still practically unknown in the Netherlands.