Rouen Cathedral, Portal, Sunlight

Monet signed this canvas at the lower right with his name and '94. By then the work at Rouen was behind him. He had painted the cathedral's west front on the spot in the early months of 1892 and 1893, then spent 1894 finishing the canvases in his studio at Giverny. Up close, the paint here is a thick crust, and the stone breaks apart into flecks of colour. From across the room the doorways, the rose window and the towers settle back into place, and at the bottom left three tiny figures stand at the foot of the façade. The picture went from Monet to his Paris dealer, Durand-Ruel, and was shown in New York in 1917. On 10 November 1926 the New York financier Chester Dale bought it. Less than four weeks later, on 5 December, Monet died at Giverny. Dale left it to the National Gallery in Washington in 1963, together with a second view of the same façade.