카프마르탱

Monet first saw the Riviera in December 1883, travelling with Renoir, and decided almost at once to come back without him, since working beside another painter made him self-conscious. He returned in January 1884 and stayed close to three months, based at Bordighera on the Italian side of the border, writing home that the blue of that sea and sky was beyond his paintbox and that he would need a palette of diamonds and jewels.

He stopped at Menton on the way back in April and worked on the headland of Cap Martin, a wooded point running out into the water. This canvas comes from those last days of the trip.

It is in Belgium because of Henri Van Cutsem, a Brussels collector who left his pictures to the town of Tournai when he died in 1904, on the condition that a museum be built for them by his friend Victor Horta. It is the only museum Horta designed.