Description

 

 

 

Monet, Claude (1840 – 1926)

Monet tries, but fails, to buy back one of his early masterpieces in 1913

An exceptional, previously unpublished autograph letter signed by Claude Monet, in which the painter unsuccessfully attempts to reacquire his own painting, La Terrasse à Sainte-Adresse (1867), one of his masterpieces, exhibited at the Fourth Impressionist Exhibition in 1879 and now housed at the Metropolitan Museum of Art in New York. Monet informs an unidentified correspondent that the painting has apparently been sold to his dealer, the great Impressionist art dealer Paul Durand-Ruel.

Writing on the first two sides of a folded mourning sheet, Monet states in full:

’10th April, 1913. Sir, in response to your letter dated the 7th of this month, for which I thank you, I must, to my great regret, inform you that, having been advised by Monsieur Durand-Ruel that the sale of the painting in question had apparently been concluded, I had no choice but to yield. I could not have proceeded immediately with the proposed exchange at a valuation of 30,000 francs, given that Monsieur Frat’s generous offer to me had been for only 20,000 francs. Please accept my sincere regrets and my best regards. Claude Monet.’

More than forty years after painting the work, Monet sought to reacquire La Terrasse à Sainte-Adresse from the Montpellier collector Victor Frat, a friend of the painter Frédéric Bazille, who had acquired it for the modest sum of 400 francs in the 1870s. According to the present letter, Frat had offered to sell it back to Monet for 20,000 francs, a figure documented by this letter and, according to the available bibliography, otherwise unrecorded. Following Frat’s death in 1902, his widow, Marie Frat, proved less accommodating, asking 30,000 francs. The negotiations were ultimately overtaken by Durand-Ruel, who acquired the painting for the documented sum of 27,000 francs. Less than a month after the dealer’s purchase, the painting had reached the United States, where it was exhibited the following year. It was subsequently acquired for $11,500 by the Reverend Theodore Pitcairn in 1926, before entering the Metropolitan Museum’s collection in 1967.

A highly interesting document, providing a rare and intimate glimpse into Monet’s personal relationship with his early work. Of particular documentary significance, the letter preserves otherwise little-known details of the proposed transaction, including Victor Frat’s original offer of 20,000 francs, while illustrating the extraordinary appreciation in the value of Monet’s paintings and the growing influence of his dealer, Paul Durand-Ruel, in the intervening years.

The present letter is cited in the bibliography of the Metropolitan Museum of Art.

In fine condition, with two small tears to the margins at the central fold.