Claude Monet
The Artist’s Garden, Vétheuil1881

On view:

Geffen Galleries

Impressionist oil painting of a sunflower-lined garden path with two small figures, leading to a cream-colored house under a deep cobalt sky

Artist or Maker: Claude Monet
France, Paris, 1840-1926
Title: The Artist’s Garden, Vétheuil
Culture: French
Date Made: 1881
Medium: Oil on canvas
Dimensions: Canvas: 39 3/8 × 32 1/4 in. (100.01 × 81.92 cm) Framed: 44 1/16 × 36 1/2 × 2 1/8 in. (111.92 × 92.71 × 5.4 cm)
Credit Line: Gift of A. Jerrold Perenchio
Accession Number: M.2025.64.20
Classification: Paintings
Collecting Area: European Painting and Sculpture
Curatorial Notes: The year 1879 was a tumultuous one for Claude Monet. After the devastating death of his wife Camille, he had “no idea where to turn or how to organize my life with two children,” and financial stress had left him barely able to afford artist materials. By 1881, when he painted this view of the garden at his summer home in Vétheuil, a small town northwest of Paris, both his living and financial situation had improved. He began the painting along with two others of the same subject (Norton Simon Museum and private collection) possibly in preparation for a larger picture completed later that year (National Gallery of Art, Washington, D.C.). Both the LACMA and Norton Simon canvases, of equal dimensions, were sold to Monet’s dealer Paul Durand-Ruel, and one of them—it remains difficult to determine which—was exhibited at the Seventh Impressionist Exhibition in 1882.

The property at Vétheuil was co-rented with Monet’s friends, the Hoschédés. Here, his son Michel and Jean-Pierre Hoschédé descend the stone steps of the lush garden, which bursts with summer sunflowers and quivers in the scorching sunlight. Our painting can be distinguished from the others not only because of the inclusion of the two boys but by its near lack of shadow. Monet captured the effects of the stark midday sun with comparatively few areas of shady respite in the two-tiered garden. As in the other three paintings, the road between the house and garden has been eliminated. This lack of compositional depth, coupled with the textured surface, reinforces the picture’s frontality. Vertical and horizontal axes anchor the scene, running through the painting in pairs: two vertical axes mark either side of the staircase, with the left axis the exact center of the canvas; and two horizontal axes mark the picture at the exact center and just below, indicated by the boys’ blue waistbands. The two center lines converge at Jean-Pierre’s left shoulder. This deliberate geometry provides a balance to the free handling of paint, a dynamic formula that was key to Monet’s success.

The painting’s calm uplift belies a dark history. In late 1940 or early 1941, it was confiscated by the Nazis from the collection of the Jewish Czechoslovakian mining magnate Oskar Federer. While Federer and his wife managed to escape Europe and make their way to Canada, nearly all of their property, including an important art collection, was plundered by the Nazis. After the war, the painting was restituted to the family through the French Commission for Art Recovery and reentered the art market after Federer’s death.
Provenance: The artist, sold 9 February 1882 to; [Galerie Durand-Ruel, Paris]. Paul Durand-Ruel, Paris, sold 25 August 1891 to; [Galerie Durand-Ruel, Paris, sold 4 January 1893 to]; James F. Sutton (1844–1915), New York (sale, New York, American Art Association, 26 April 1895, lot 121, to);(1) [Durand-Ruel Galleries, New York, sold May 1895 to]; [Galerie Durand-Ruel, Paris, sold 16 September 1905 to]; [Paul Cassirer (1871–1926), Berlin, sold 7 November 1907 to]; [Galerie Durand-Ruel, Paris, sold 4 October 1916 to]; Pierre Dubied, Neuchâtel, Switzerland. [Paul Cassirer (1871–1926), Berlin, sold 1919 to]; [Christensen & Jörck, Copenhagen].(2) Oskar Federer (1884–1968), Ostrava and Prague, Czechoslovakia, from at least June 1938, confiscated late 1940 or early 1941 by;(3) Einsatzstab Reichsleiter Rosenberg (ERR), Paris (ERR card Unb. 348), removed from Banque Rothschild Frères;(4) Reichsmarschall Hermann Göring (1893–1946), by 9 July 1941 used for trade with;(5) [Gustav Rochlitz (1889–1972), Meersburg-Mühlhofen, Germany, repatriated by Allied Forces to France in March 1946];(6,7) Mr. and Mrs.Oskar Federer (1884–1968), Montreal. [Richard L. Feigen & Co., New York, sold 15 October 1968 to]; Charles W. Engelhard (1917–1971), bequeathed to; Jane Engelhard (née Marie Antoinette Jeanne Reiss, 1917–2004) (sale, New York, Christie’s, 13 November 1996, lot 13, to);(8) A. J. Perenchio (1930– 2017), Los Angeles, gifted 2025 to; Los Angeles County Museum of Art
Footnotes
(1) James F. Sutton was a founding member of the American Art Association and married Florence Macy, daughter of R. H. Macy, on 16 November 1876. According to Durand-Ruel the picture was purchased from Mr. Durand-Ruel on 25 August 1891 for 2000 Francs and sold on 4 January 1893 to Sutton for 6000 Francs, with the stock number 1255. It was then bought back from his estate sale by Durand-Ruel, New York, with the stock number 1411 and sold to Durand-Ruel Paris in May 1895 with the stock number 3324. The same stock number was used for its sale to Dubied in 1916 (document prepared by Flavie and Paul-Louis Durand-Ruel for Leah Lehmbeck, 8 December 2015).
(2) The Danish Ministry of Commerce describes “Christensen & Jörck, Copenhagen” as a broker and banking firm active around 1917 through 1922, operated by Georg Alfred Christensen and Poul Christian Valdemar Jörck.
(3) Oskar Federer stated that some of his paintings were brought out of Czechoslovakia in “June 1938 to Amsterdam for the Exhibition of French Art at the Stedelijk Museum. One of these pictures, ‘Jardin de Giverny’ by Claude Monet, signed and dated, 1881, 101–82 cm, was sent to Paris, where I was staying. I left Paris in August 1939 for London, but this picture remained in Paris and was sent before the invasion by the Germans, together with art treasures of the Rothschild family, to Nevers in France. I have been informed by Baron Guy de Rothschild, that this picture has been stolen by the Germans and that there was no possibility of the employees of the Banque Rothschild Frères preventing its theft.” Quote from O. Federer letter to the British Committee for the Preservation & Restitution of Works of Art, London, 31 May 1945, copy in Federer’s file at the Ministère des Affaires étrangères, Département des Archives, La Courneuve, Paris, Cote 209SUP, Carton 51, CRA Dossier #46.489.1513. Federer was the Director of the Vítkovice Mining and Metallurgic company, the largest steel manufacturer in Czechoslovakia in the 1930s. Federer was also a distinguished collector of French Impressionists, and nineteenth– twentieth century German, Austrian, and Czech art in prewar Czechoslovakia. Forced to flee the country in 1939, Federer settled in Montreal, Canada, in August 1940 with the assistance of the British Foreign Office. Much of his collection was confiscated in Czechoslovakia, along with at least this one painting in Paris.
(4) ERR Photograph for Monet painting Unb. 348, BArch B323/297; B323/72, where Federer’s Monet appears as part of a longer list dated 10.5.44/DvI/Spa (pp. “95–101”) of items from the Jeu de Paume marked “HG.” intended for Hermann Göring, Bundesarchiv, Koblenz. Federer and the Monet also appear on Devisenschutzkommando List dated 5 May 1941. Original German copies appear in ERR Correspondence (May 1941–June 1941), pp.129-h–132-h, Records Concerning the Central Collecting Points (“Ardelia Hall Collection”): Munich Central Collecting Point, 1945–1951, Record Group 260, M1946; National Archives and Records Administration, College Park, MD.
(5) The Monet appears on Göring’s special list of artwork intended for trade. Sonderstab Bildende Kunst Arbeitsgruppe Louvre, F./St. dated 9 April 1943, no. 38, Consolidated Interrogation Report no.2: The Goering Collection, Attachment 5, Records of the American Commission for the Protection and Salvage of Artistic and Historic Monuments in War Areas, 1943–1946, Record Group 239, M1944; National Archives and Records Administration, College Park, MD.
(6) Rochlitz was a German art dealer who traded to the ERR on Göring’s behalf eighteen artworks, including the Monet, for Titian’s Portrait of Lavinia. The exchange dated 9 July 1941–10 is detailed in item 11, Restitution Research Records, ERR: Göring Art Exchanges (1941), Records Concerning the Central Collecting Points (“Ardelia Hall Collection”): Munich Central Collecting Point, 1945–1951, Record Group 260, M1946; Consolidated Interrogation Reports no. 1, Activity of The Einsatzstab Rosenberg In France, OSS Art Looting Investigation Unit Reports, 1945–46, Record Group 239, M1782; National Archives and Records Administration, College Park, MD. Rochlitz’s dispersal of the paintings is described in Gustav Rochlitz, Detailed Interrogation Report (DIR) no. 4, Ardelia Hall Collection, NARA.
(7) Restituted to Oskar Federer by the French Commission de Récupération artistique (Commission for Art Recovery) via Federer’s representative E. Oplatek. Ministère des Affaires étrangères, Département des Archives, La Courneuve, Paris (Cote 209SUP, Carton 51, CRA Dossier #46.489.1513, “M. [Oskar] Federer, London.”).
(8) Charles W. Engelhard was president of Engelhard Minerals and Chemicals, founded by his father, and specialized in the precious metals industry. Purportedly he served as the inspiration for the James Bond novel Goldfinger, written by his friend Ian Fleming. In addition to this Monet, Engelhard owned Monet’s Water Lilies, cat. 34.
Selected Bibliography: Lehmbeck, Leah, ed. Impressionist and Modern Art: The A. Jerrold Perenchio Collection. Los Angeles: Los Angeles County Museum of Art; Munich: DelMonico Books/Prestel, 2016.
Copyright: photo © Fredrik Nilsen

Related Unframed

Claude Monet
The Artist’s Garden, Vétheuil1881

On view:

Geffen Galleries

Artist or Maker: Claude Monet
France, Paris, 1840-1926
Title: The Artist’s Garden, Vétheuil
Culture: French
Date Made: 1881
Medium: Oil on canvas
Dimensions: Canvas: 39 3/8 × 32 1/4 in. (100.01 × 81.92 cm) Framed: 44 1/16 × 36 1/2 × 2 1/8 in. (111.92 × 92.71 × 5.4 cm)
Credit Line: Gift of A. Jerrold Perenchio
Accession Number: M.2025.64.20
Classification: Paintings
Collecting Area: European Painting and Sculpture
Curatorial Notes: The year 1879 was a tumultuous one for Claude Monet. After the devastating death of his wife Camille, he had “no idea where to turn or how to organize my life with two children,” and financial stress had left him barely able to afford artist materials. By 1881, when he painted this view of the garden at his summer home in Vétheuil, a small town northwest of Paris, both his living and financial situation had improved. He began the painting along with two others of the same subject (Norton Simon Museum and private collection) possibly in preparation for a larger picture completed later that year (National Gallery of Art, Washington, D.C.). Both the LACMA and Norton Simon canvases, of equal dimensions, were sold to Monet’s dealer Paul Durand-Ruel, and one of them—it remains difficult to determine which—was exhibited at the Seventh Impressionist Exhibition in 1882.

The property at Vétheuil was co-rented with Monet’s friends, the Hoschédés. Here, his son Michel and Jean-Pierre Hoschédé descend the stone steps of the lush garden, which bursts with summer sunflowers and quivers in the scorching sunlight. Our painting can be distinguished from the others not only because of the inclusion of the two boys but by its near lack of shadow. Monet captured the effects of the stark midday sun with comparatively few areas of shady respite in the two-tiered garden. As in the other three paintings, the road between the house and garden has been eliminated. This lack of compositional depth, coupled with the textured surface, reinforces the picture’s frontality. Vertical and horizontal axes anchor the scene, running through the painting in pairs: two vertical axes mark either side of the staircase, with the left axis the exact center of the canvas; and two horizontal axes mark the picture at the exact center and just below, indicated by the boys’ blue waistbands. The two center lines converge at Jean-Pierre’s left shoulder. This deliberate geometry provides a balance to the free handling of paint, a dynamic formula that was key to Monet’s success.

The painting’s calm uplift belies a dark history. In late 1940 or early 1941, it was confiscated by the Nazis from the collection of the Jewish Czechoslovakian mining magnate Oskar Federer. While Federer and his wife managed to escape Europe and make their way to Canada, nearly all of their property, including an important art collection, was plundered by the Nazis. After the war, the painting was restituted to the family through the French Commission for Art Recovery and reentered the art market after Federer’s death.
Provenance: The artist, sold 9 February 1882 to; [Galerie Durand-Ruel, Paris]. Paul Durand-Ruel, Paris, sold 25 August 1891 to; [Galerie Durand-Ruel, Paris, sold 4 January 1893 to]; James F. Sutton (1844–1915), New York (sale, New York, American Art Association, 26 April 1895, lot 121, to);(1) [Durand-Ruel Galleries, New York, sold May 1895 to]; [Galerie Durand-Ruel, Paris, sold 16 September 1905 to]; [Paul Cassirer (1871–1926), Berlin, sold 7 November 1907 to]; [Galerie Durand-Ruel, Paris, sold 4 October 1916 to]; Pierre Dubied, Neuchâtel, Switzerland. [Paul Cassirer (1871–1926), Berlin, sold 1919 to]; [Christensen & Jörck, Copenhagen].(2) Oskar Federer (1884–1968), Ostrava and Prague, Czechoslovakia, from at least June 1938, confiscated late 1940 or early 1941 by;(3) Einsatzstab Reichsleiter Rosenberg (ERR), Paris (ERR card Unb. 348), removed from Banque Rothschild Frères;(4) Reichsmarschall Hermann Göring (1893–1946), by 9 July 1941 used for trade with;(5) [Gustav Rochlitz (1889–1972), Meersburg-Mühlhofen, Germany, repatriated by Allied Forces to France in March 1946];(6,7) Mr. and Mrs.Oskar Federer (1884–1968), Montreal. [Richard L. Feigen & Co., New York, sold 15 October 1968 to]; Charles W. Engelhard (1917–1971), bequeathed to; Jane Engelhard (née Marie Antoinette Jeanne Reiss, 1917–2004) (sale, New York, Christie’s, 13 November 1996, lot 13, to);(8) A. J. Perenchio (1930– 2017), Los Angeles, gifted 2025 to; Los Angeles County Museum of Art
Footnotes
(1) James F. Sutton was a founding member of the American Art Association and married Florence Macy, daughter of R. H. Macy, on 16 November 1876. According to Durand-Ruel the picture was purchased from Mr. Durand-Ruel on 25 August 1891 for 2000 Francs and sold on 4 January 1893 to Sutton for 6000 Francs, with the stock number 1255. It was then bought back from his estate sale by Durand-Ruel, New York, with the stock number 1411 and sold to Durand-Ruel Paris in May 1895 with the stock number 3324. The same stock number was used for its sale to Dubied in 1916 (document prepared by Flavie and Paul-Louis Durand-Ruel for Leah Lehmbeck, 8 December 2015).
(2) The Danish Ministry of Commerce describes “Christensen & Jörck, Copenhagen” as a broker and banking firm active around 1917 through 1922, operated by Georg Alfred Christensen and Poul Christian Valdemar Jörck.
(3) Oskar Federer stated that some of his paintings were brought out of Czechoslovakia in “June 1938 to Amsterdam for the Exhibition of French Art at the Stedelijk Museum. One of these pictures, ‘Jardin de Giverny’ by Claude Monet, signed and dated, 1881, 101–82 cm, was sent to Paris, where I was staying. I left Paris in August 1939 for London, but this picture remained in Paris and was sent before the invasion by the Germans, together with art treasures of the Rothschild family, to Nevers in France. I have been informed by Baron Guy de Rothschild, that this picture has been stolen by the Germans and that there was no possibility of the employees of the Banque Rothschild Frères preventing its theft.” Quote from O. Federer letter to the British Committee for the Preservation & Restitution of Works of Art, London, 31 May 1945, copy in Federer’s file at the Ministère des Affaires étrangères, Département des Archives, La Courneuve, Paris, Cote 209SUP, Carton 51, CRA Dossier #46.489.1513. Federer was the Director of the Vítkovice Mining and Metallurgic company, the largest steel manufacturer in Czechoslovakia in the 1930s. Federer was also a distinguished collector of French Impressionists, and nineteenth– twentieth century German, Austrian, and Czech art in prewar Czechoslovakia. Forced to flee the country in 1939, Federer settled in Montreal, Canada, in August 1940 with the assistance of the British Foreign Office. Much of his collection was confiscated in Czechoslovakia, along with at least this one painting in Paris.
(4) ERR Photograph for Monet painting Unb. 348, BArch B323/297; B323/72, where Federer’s Monet appears as part of a longer list dated 10.5.44/DvI/Spa (pp. “95–101”) of items from the Jeu de Paume marked “HG.” intended for Hermann Göring, Bundesarchiv, Koblenz. Federer and the Monet also appear on Devisenschutzkommando List dated 5 May 1941. Original German copies appear in ERR Correspondence (May 1941–June 1941), pp.129-h–132-h, Records Concerning the Central Collecting Points (“Ardelia Hall Collection”): Munich Central Collecting Point, 1945–1951, Record Group 260, M1946; National Archives and Records Administration, College Park, MD.
(5) The Monet appears on Göring’s special list of artwork intended for trade. Sonderstab Bildende Kunst Arbeitsgruppe Louvre, F./St. dated 9 April 1943, no. 38, Consolidated Interrogation Report no.2: The Goering Collection, Attachment 5, Records of the American Commission for the Protection and Salvage of Artistic and Historic Monuments in War Areas, 1943–1946, Record Group 239, M1944; National Archives and Records Administration, College Park, MD.
(6) Rochlitz was a German art dealer who traded to the ERR on Göring’s behalf eighteen artworks, including the Monet, for Titian’s Portrait of Lavinia. The exchange dated 9 July 1941–10 is detailed in item 11, Restitution Research Records, ERR: Göring Art Exchanges (1941), Records Concerning the Central Collecting Points (“Ardelia Hall Collection”): Munich Central Collecting Point, 1945–1951, Record Group 260, M1946; Consolidated Interrogation Reports no. 1, Activity of The Einsatzstab Rosenberg In France, OSS Art Looting Investigation Unit Reports, 1945–46, Record Group 239, M1782; National Archives and Records Administration, College Park, MD. Rochlitz’s dispersal of the paintings is described in Gustav Rochlitz, Detailed Interrogation Report (DIR) no. 4, Ardelia Hall Collection, NARA.
(7) Restituted to Oskar Federer by the French Commission de Récupération artistique (Commission for Art Recovery) via Federer’s representative E. Oplatek. Ministère des Affaires étrangères, Département des Archives, La Courneuve, Paris (Cote 209SUP, Carton 51, CRA Dossier #46.489.1513, “M. [Oskar] Federer, London.”).
(8) Charles W. Engelhard was president of Engelhard Minerals and Chemicals, founded by his father, and specialized in the precious metals industry. Purportedly he served as the inspiration for the James Bond novel Goldfinger, written by his friend Ian Fleming. In addition to this Monet, Engelhard owned Monet’s Water Lilies, cat. 34.
Selected Bibliography: Lehmbeck, Leah, ed. Impressionist and Modern Art: The A. Jerrold Perenchio Collection. Los Angeles: Los Angeles County Museum of Art; Munich: DelMonico Books/Prestel, 2016.
Copyright: photo © Fredrik Nilsen

Related Unframed

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