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We look across a river at an arched bridge spanning the width of this horizontal landscape. Created with smudges of pastel almost entirely in tones of cream and bright white, pale lavender purple, soft teal, and the faintest sky blue, the bridge seems nearly lost in a bright fog. The straight deck of the bridge divides the composition in half, though it angles slightly away from us toward the right. The four low arches of the bridge are powder blue and lilac purple with cobalt blue shadows underneath. Blended areas of light, spring green, azure blue, and pale yellow create a hazy sky above. Vertical lines in ultramarine blue could be smokestacks or towers in the distance on the far bank. The blue paper is visible and has darkened at the edges of the sheet. The artist signed the work in smoke gray in the lower right corner: “Claude Monet.”

Claude Monet

Waterloo Bridge, 1901

Not on View

Medium

pastel on blue wove paper

Dimensions

overall: 31.1 x 50.2 cm (12 1/4 x 19 3/4 in.)

Credit Line

Florian Carr Fund

Accession Number

2013.102.2

Artists / Makers

Claude Monet (artist) French, 1840 - 1926

Image Use

This image is in the public domain.
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Provenance

(Galerie Montag, Zurich); Guy de Portalès, 1912. (sale, Christie's London, 29 March 1988, no. 306, (Richard Green, London); private collection, London, 1988); (Richard Green, London, 2009); Mr. and Mrs. James T. Dyke, Little Rock, 2009; purchased by NGA, 2013.

Associated Names

Anonymous
Dyke, James T., Mr. and Mrs.
Galerie Montag
Green, Richard
Portalès, Guy de

Exhibition History

1912: Gemalde-ausstellung franzosischer, Kunstsalon Wolfburg, Zurich, no. 759.

2008: Impressionism & Modern Masters, Paris, London, New York, no. 13.

2012: De Delacroix à Signac: Dessins de la collection Dyke. Musée des impressionnismes Giverny, 2012, 80, 93, 160, no. 51 (color).

2013: Color, Line, Light: French Drawings, Watercolors, and Pastels from Delacroix to Signac. National Gallery of Art, Washington, 2013, 80, 93, 160, no. 51 (color)(cat. published in 2012).

2019: The Touch of Color: Pastels at the National Gallery of Art, National Gallery of Art, Washington, 2019 - 2020, unnumbered catalogue.

Bibliography

1991: Wildenstein, Daniel, Monet Vol V Lausanne: Wildenstein Institute, 1991: no. 95.

2014: Grasselli, Margaret Morgan. "Claude Monet, Waterloo Bridge," National Gallery of Art Bulletin no. 50 (Spring 2014): 30-31 (color).