The Seine at Giverny

The first owner of this canvas was a New Yorker. Monet sold it himself to James F. Sutton, who ran the American Art Association, a gallery and auction house in Manhattan. Sutton already had a place in Monet's story. In 1886 he had invited the Paris dealer Paul Durand-Ruel to bring the Impressionists to New York, and the exhibition he hosted included 48 paintings by Monet. By 1897, when Monet painted these trees and their reflection in the Seine near his home at Giverny, American collectors had become some of his most dependable buyers. The picture stayed with Sutton until his death in 1915, then with his widow. In October 1933, deep in the Depression, it was auctioned at the American Art Association itself and bought for the banker Chester Dale, who left it to the National Gallery in 1963.