Lavacourt sob a neve

Monet moved his family to the village of Vétheuil on the Seine in 1878, and it was a hard place to be. His wife Camille died there in September 1879, aged 32, and money was so short the household nearly broke apart. Then came one of the coldest winters in memory. The Seine froze solid, and when the thaw began to break the ice apart Monet went out into the cold to paint it. This view looks across the river to Lavacourt, a scatter of houses on the far bank. The near side, where he stood, lies in cold blue shadow. The far side catches a low pink sun. He built the great bank of snow in the foreground from broad sweeps of white laid over blue. Though he signed it 1881, he most likely painted it in that frozen winter of 1879 and 1880, and Monet often dated canvases years after he finished them.