La Seine à Argenteuil

Claude Monet settled in the town of Argenteuil, on the Seine just downstream from Paris, in late 1871, and for the next few years the river became his main subject. He even fitted out a small boat as a floating studio so he could paint the water from the water. This 1873 view, with its rippling blue river, a few sailboats, and a soft smudge of houses on the far bank, comes from exactly that stretch of his life, the year before he and his friends staged the first Impressionist exhibition in Paris and got their name from a mocking critic. Painted quickly and out of doors, it now hangs in the Museum of Grenoble.