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Claude Monet
French, 1840–1926
The Geese
1874
The Geese was painted a few months after the first Impressionist exhibition and the painting's bright tone and thickly applied touches of color are characteristic of Monet’s experimental technique during this period. More unusual is the painting’s vertical format and dense composition. Tall trees shade a path that leads our eye from the rippling water in the foreground to the diminutive figures of a woman and child standing in front of a sunlit, whitewashed building.
Image Caption
Claude Monet, The Geese, 1874, oil on canvas. Clark Art Institute, 1955.529
Medium
oil on canvas
Dimensions
29 x 23 5/8 in. (73.7 x 60 cm)
Frame: 36 13/16 x 31 5/8 x 2 3/8 in. (93.5 x 80.3 x 6 cm)
Object Number
1955.529
Acquisition
Acquired by Sterling and Francine Clark before 1955
Status
On View
Select Bibliography
Sterling and Francine Clark Art Institute. Exhibit Five: French Paintings of the 19th Century. Exhibition catalogue. Williamstown, MA: Sterling and Francine Clark Art Institute, 1956. Sterling and Francine Clark Art Institute. List of Paintings in the Sterling and Francine Clark Art Institute. Williamstown, MA: Sterling and Francine Clark Art Institute, 1970. Sterling and Francine Clark Art Institute. List of Paintings in the Sterling & Francine Clark Art Institute. Williamstown, MA: Sterling and Francine Clark Art Institute, 1972. Wildenstein, Daniel. Claude Monet: Biographie et catalogue raisonné. 5 volumes. Lausanne & Paris: La Bibliothèque des Arts, 1974-1991. . Claude Monet. Oct. 27-Nov. 28, 1976. Acquavella Galleries, New York. 1976. Chuji Ikegami.. Monet. Rising Sun Series, Art of the World, vol. 8.. Tokyo: Zauho Press.. 1978.. Paul Hayes Tucker.. Monet at Argenteuil.. New Haven: Yale University Press.. 1982.. Sterling and Francine Clark Art Institute. List of Paintings in the Sterling and Francine Clark Art Institute. Williamstown, MA: Sterling and Francine Clark Art Institute, 1984. Brooks, John H. Monet in Massachusetts. Exhibition brochure. Williamstown, MA: Sterling and Francine Clark Art Institute, 1985. Kern, Steven, ed. List of Paintings in the Sterling and Francine Clark Art Institute. Williamstown, MA: Sterling and Francine Clark Art Institute, 1992. Kern, Steven, et al. The Clark: Selections from the Sterling and Francine Clark Art Institute. New York: Hudson Hills Press, 1996. Daniel Wildenstein. Monet: Catalogue Raisonné, 4 vols. (in English, French, German).. Wildenstein Institute and Paris: Taschen France and Cologne: Benedikt Taschen Verlag.. 1996. Melikian, Souren. "A Unique and Unforgettable Collection." International Herald Tribune, 16–17 September 2000. Fondation Beyeler. Claude Monet...up to digital Impressionism. Mar. 28-Aug. 18, 2002. Kunsthalle der Hypo-Kulturstiftung, Munich, Nov. 22, 2001-Mar. 10, 2002. Beyeler only. Ganz, James A. and Richard R. Brettell. Great French Paintings from the Clark: Barbizon through Impressionism. Exhibition catalogue. New York: Skira Rizzoli Publications; Williamstown, MA: Sterling and Francine Clark Art Institute, 2011. Lees, Sarah, ed. Nineteenth-Century European Paintings at the Sterling and Francine Clark Art Institute. Williamstown, MA: Sterling and Francine Clark Art Institute; New Haven and London: distributed by Yale University Press, 2012.
Provenance
The artist, sold to Faure, Nov. 1874, as Les Oies; Jean-Baptiste Faure, Paris (from 1874); Auguste Pellerin, Paris (in 1899); [Bernheim-Jeune, Paris, in 1899]; [Foinard, Paris, in 1899]; [Durand-Ruel, Paris, sold to Behrend, 1912]; Mme. Behrend, Paris (from 1912); Allston Burr, Boston (d. 1949); [Knoedler, New York, sold to Clark, 9 June 1949, as Les Canards]; Robert Sterling Clark (1949–55); Sterling and Francine Clark Art Institute, 1955.