Winter on the Seine, Vetheuil, unknown maker from France

Label Aug-2007:
This painting was previously attributed to the French Impressionist painter, Claude Monet (1840-1926). On the basis of style, however, some specialists on Monet's paintings do not support that attribution. Knowing that, one must ask: is the work a forgery? Quite possibly. However, it might also be explained as a painting abandoned by Monet as unsatisfactory, or the work of a follower or amateur, to which Monet's signature was later added, maliciously or otherwise.

As scholarship and our technical understanding of the material aspects of artworks evolve, opinions about authorship often change. Another example of a changing attribution in the Spencer Museum of Art is a work by the Italian artist, architect and writer, Giorgio Vasari (1511-1574). His Christ Carrying the Cross (in the museum's Renaissance Gallery) was previously considered the work of a follower, but recent scholarship has elevated the attribution to a work by Vasari himself.

Archive Label 2003:
In January of 1880, a sudden thaw and an equally sudden drop in temperature resulted in a spectacle of nature. Great ice floes drifted down the Seine River. Monet executed a series of paintings of the scene that concentrated on capturing the ephemeral conditions of the winter light. The sense of the momentary, exhibited in this painting, is a hallmark of impressionist painting.

Archive Label:
Monet believed that the first look at a subject was the truest. Wanting to retain what he saw and forget what he knew of the object resulted in a painting style that was spontaneous, capturing the momentary. This became an important element of impressionist painting.
In January of 1880 a sudden thaw and break-up of ice and an equally sudden drop in temperature resulted in a spectacle of nature. Great ice flows, in seemingly suspended animation, grasped the shores of the Seine. Moved by the haunting beauty, Monet did a series of paintings of the scene that concentrated more on capturing the ephemeral conditions of the winter light than on trying to record details of the landscape.
Monet saw under a sunless, leaden sky a harmony of shapes and a variety of colors quite different from the sunlit brilliant colors many of us expect to see in his paintings.