April 14, 1893
Rue de l’Amiscourt, Giverny
I looked out my window this morning and there was Madame Seurel in the Perrys’ orchard. She had hung carpets in the apple trees and was beating them with all her might. Her face was bright red! When I saw that the shutters were open, I realized the Perrys are coming back! Hurrah! I can’t wait to see Edith and Degas. And for them to meet Toby! I wonder when they’re coming. I’ll ask Madame Seurel. Maybe she knows.
April 14, 1893
Later in the day
A letter from Lizzy. Surely, this is the most special day of my life!
Madame Seurel says the Perrys will be here the day after tomorrow! There’s so much to write about and I’m almost out of paper. It’s three o’clock now . . . I know! I’ll ride into town with Monsieur Seurel when he goes to pick up Mama. We can stop at the stationer’s shop where I’ll find another journal. While I’m at it, I’ll get one for Lizzy, too, and surprise her with it. Then we can both write about the adventures we’ll have together in Giverny.
I can’t wait!
CREDITS
In order of journal entry
April 24, 1892
Photograph courtesy of John Maxtone-Graham of the New York Ocean Liner Museum.
April 30, 1892
William Merritt Chase (1849–1916)
Young Girl on an Ocean Steamer, c. 1884.
Pastel on paper, 29 × 24 inches.
Courtesy of the Warner Collection of Gulf States Paper Corporation, Tuscaloosa, Alabama.
May 3, 1892
Caisse Nationale des Monuments Historiques et des Sites
Children in the Jardin des Plantes, c. 1910.
© Seeberger Frères/Arch.
Phot./Caisse Nationale des Monuments Historiques et des Sites, Paris.
May 5, 1892
William Blair Bruce (1859–1906)
Landscape with Poppies, 1887.
Oil on canvas, 10 3/4 × 15 13/15 inches.
Art Gallery of Ontario, Toronto. Purchase with assistance from Wintario, 1977.
May 13, 1892
Mary Hubbard Foote (1872–1968)
View Through the Studio Window, Giverny, c.1899 to 1901.
Oil on canvas, 25 1/2 × 18 inches. Courtesy of John Pence Gallery, San Francisco.
May 20, 1892
Theodore Robinson (1852–1896)
Blossoms at Giverny, 1891 to 1893.
Oil on canvas, 21 5/8 × 20 1/8 inches.
Terra Foundation for the Arts, Daniel J. Terra Collection. Photograph courtesy of Terra Museum of American Art, Chicago.
June 1, 1892
Frederick Carl Frieseke (1874–1939)
Lilies, n.d.
Oil on canvas, 25 3/4 × 32 1/8 inches.
Daniel J. Terra Collection.
Photograph courtesy of Terra Museum of American Art, Chicago.
June 6, 1892
Theodore Robinson (1852–1896)
La Débâcle, 1892.
Oil on canvas, 18 × 22 inches.
Scripps College, Claremont, California. Gift of General and Mrs. Edward Clinton Young, 1946.
Photograph by Susan Einstein.
June 13, 1892
Lilla Cabot Perry (1848–1933)
Child Sewing at a Window, n.d.
Oil on canvas mounted on Masonite, 21 3/4 × 18 1/4 inches.
Collection of Jane and Ira Carlin.
Courtesy of Ira Carlin.
Photograph © Collection of Monsieur Philippe Piguet.
July 10, 1892
Claude Monet (1840–1926)
Boat at Giverny, c. 1887.
Oil on canvas, 38 1/2 × 51 1/2 inches.
Musée d’Orsay, Paris. Giraudon/Art Resource, New York.
July 21, 1892
Theodore Robinson (1852–1896)
The Wedding March, 1892.
Oil on canvas, 22 5/16 × 26 1/2 inches.
Terra Foundation for the Arts, Daniel J. Terra Collection. Photograph courtesy of Terra Museum of American Art, Chicago.
John Singer Sargent (1856–1925)
Carnation, Lily, Lily, Rose. 1885 to 1886.
Oil on canvas, 68 1/2 × 60 1/2 inches.
Tate Gallery, London/Art Resource, New York.
August 16, 1892
Karl Anderson (1874–1956)
Tennis Court at the Hôtel Baudy, 1910.
Oil on canvas, 21 1/8 × 25 inches.
Terra Foundation for the Arts, Daniel J. Terra Collection. Photograph courtesy of Terra Museum of American Art, Chicago.
August 21, 1892
Photograph © Collection of Monsieur Philippe Piguet.
September 1, 1892
John Leslie Breck (1860–1899)
Studies of an Autumn Day, 1891.
Oil on canvas, 13 1/4 × 16 1/4 inches.
Terra Foundation for the Arts, Daniel J. Terra Collection, 1989.4.12. Photograph courtesy of Terra Museum of American Art, Chicago.
September 4, 1892
Theodore Robinson (1852–1896)
Gathering Plums, 1891.
Oil on canvas, 22 × 18 1/8 inches.
Georgia Museum of Art, The University of Georgia. Eva Underhill Holbrook Memorial Collection of American Art, Gift of Alfred H. Holbrook.
October 1, 1892
Robert Vonnoh (1858–1933)
Detail of In Flander’s Field—Where Soldiers Sleep and Poppies Grow, originally Coquelicots, 1890.
Oil on canvas, 58 × 104 inches.
The Butler Institute of American Art, Youngstown, Ohio.
February 27, 1893
Photograph © Collection of Monsieur Philippe Piguet.
March 21, 1893
Willard Leroy Metcalf (1858–1925)
The River Epte, Giverny, 1887.
Oil on canvas, 12 1/4 × 15 7/8 inches.
Terra Foundation for the Arts, Daniel J. Terra Collection. Photograph courtesy of Terra Museum of American Art, Chicago.
All other photographs & ephemera collection of the author.
THE ARTISTS
KARL ANDERSON (1874-1956) Ohio-born Karl Anderson, brother of the playwright Sherwood Anderson, traveled to Giverny in 1910. Although Anderson did not stay long in Giverny, the figure paintings he did there are important Impressionist works, filled with luminous color, bright sunlight and shadows. In New York he was part of a group of six painters New York critics referred to as “the Giverny Group.”
JOHN LESLIE BRECK (1860-1899) The son of a merchant-marine captain, Breck was born at sea and grew up in Newtown, Massachusetts. He visited Giverny in 1887 and became one of the original colonists there. He developed a close relationship with Monet, painting with him in the countryside and in Monet’s own garden, and was greatly influenced by the French master’s work. But when Breck fell in love with Monet’s daughter, Blanche, Monet would have none of it, and Breck left Giverny for good in 1890.
WILLIAM BLAIR BRUCE (1859-1906) A Canadian painter, Bruce was one of the first founders of the artists’ colony at Giverny. In 1887, he, his good friend Theodore Robinson and four other companions rented a large furnished house in the village and went out to paint the local countryside. Both Bruce and Robinson painted panoramic landscapes with similar compositions and may well have painted together, setting their easels up side by side.
THEODORE EARL BUTLER (1861-1936) In 1888, Butler traveled to Giverny. At first a guest at the Baudy Hotel, the Ohio-born painter became a permanent resident of the village when he married Monet’s daughter, Suzanne Hoschedé. After the wedding, Butler turned to his home, garden and his growing family for inspiration. His pictures of Suzanne and their children, painted both indoors and out, reflect a happy domesticity.
GUSTAVE CAILLEBOTTE (1849-1894) Like his friend Monet, Caillebotte loved painting, gardening and boating. A frequent visitor to the Maison du Pressoir, Caillebotte would travel along the Seine from Paris on his yacht, often arriving unannounced. Monet urged him to lighten his palette and taught him how to paint the play of light on
water. A wealthy man due to an inheritance, Caillebotte became an important collector and supporter of his fellow Impressionist painters.
WILLIAM MERRITT CHASE (1849-1916) Chase was one of the first Americans to practice plein air painting, although he was never part of the artists’ colony in Giverny. Born and raised in Indiana, he was a brilliant art teacher and one of the most successful artists of his day. After studying in Europe he returned to New York to teach and, in 1891, established the first formal outdoor art school in the United States at Shinnecock Hills, Long Island. Often, he used his beautiful family as models in his paintings. Young Girl on an Ocean Steamer, may well be a portrait of one of his daughters, painted on a family summer trip abroad.
DAWSON DAWSON-WATSON (1864-1939) The first English painter to travel to Giverny, Dawson-Watson arrived there in May 1888. He registered at the Baudy Hotel for a two-week visit but, enchanted with the village, stayed for five years. During that time, he created a large body of work, many of the paintings images of peasant women.
MARY HUBBARD FOOTE (1872-1968) Born and raised in Connecticut, Foote received a travel grant which enabled her to go to Europe to paint. In Paris, and later in Giverny, she was a devoted student of the talented sculptor and painter Frederick MacMonnies. When she returned to New York, she became a portraitist, but while in Giverny her subject was often the village’s colorful gardens.
FREDERICK CARL FRIESEKE (1874-1939) Originally from Michigan, Frieseke first visited Giverny in 1900 and settled there in 1906 with Sadie, his new bride. They rented a small cottage with a beautiful sunlit garden filled with flowers and surrounded by high walls. It was here, on golden afternoons, that Frieseke created many of the color-saturated figure paintings for which he is famous.
MARIQUITA GILL (1865-1916) Gill was attracted to the Impressionist style of painting after seeing exhibitions of the work of Monet and Camille Pissarro. She traveled to Giverny in 1889 with her mother and registered at the Baudy Hotel for the first of several visits. Eventually, they rented a house with a garden and settled in. At first, Gill found motifs for her paintings out in the countryside, but once her flower garden was planted she turned there for inspiration. It was in her picturesque walled garden that Theodore Robinson painted many of his figure paintings, including perhaps, Gathering Plums.
PHILIP LESLIE HALE (1865-1931) Philip Leslie Hale, a portrait and landscape painter from Boston, was a student of William Merritt Chase. He traveled to Paris in 1887 and lived there until 1892, spending his summers in Giverny. At the Hoschedé-Butler wedding, Hale was a witness for the civil service. In late 1892, Hale returned to Boston where he was involved with the Impressionist movement not only as a painter but also as an art teacher, writer and critic for the Boston Herald.
WILLARD LEROY METCALF (1858-1925) Metcalf, a Bostonian, may have visited Giverny as early as 1885, two years before the artists’ colony was founded. Enchanted with the landscape, he returned, reportedly lunched with Monet and spent the afternoon painting with Monet’s daughter, Blanche, also an Impressionist painter. By 1887, Metcalf was living in the large house he shared with William Blair Bruce, Robinson and the other early colonists. Metcalf’s hobby was collecting birds’ eggs, a popular pastime of the period.
CLAUDE MONET (1840-1926) Oscar Claude Monet was born in Paris but moved to Le Havre with his family when he was five. Even as a schoolboy, he was gifted and was encouraged by his parents and teachers to study art. When he was about sixteen, he met Eugène Boudin who liked to paint outdoors and was influenced by his work. In 1859, he returned to Paris to study art at Académie Suisse. In 1862, he met Pierre Auguste Renoir and Alfred Sisley, and together they founded an independent group of artists. They organized their first group exhibition in 1874. Monet’s painting, Impression: Sunrise, gave rise to the name “Impressionism” and defined the group’s style. In 1883, after his first wife, Camille, died, Monet moved with Alice Hoschedé and her six children to Giverny. They settled into the Maison du Pressoir, or “Cider-Press House,” where he lived—painting, gardening and landscaping—for the next forty-three years.
LILLA CABOT PERRY (1848-1933) Boston-born Lilla Cabot Perry spent ten summers in Giverny with her family, staying much of the time in a farmhouse with a garden adjoining that of Monet, her friend and mentor. Perry painted landscapes as well as figures, often children—her own as well as children from the village. She bought paintings directly from Monet’s studio and promoted his work as well as that of American Impressionist painters.
THEODORE ROBINSON (1852-1896) Born in Irasburg, Vermont, Robinson was one of the first American painters to travel to Giverny and one of the few to befriend Monet. Although Robinson was never his pupil, Monet offered to critique his paintings, and the two worked closely together from 1888 to 1892. Robinson’s The Wedding March, shows Monet escorting the bride, his daughter, Suzanne, followed by Butler, the groom, escorting Alice Hoschedé-Monet. It is testimony to the artist’s close relationship with Monet and his family. Robinson kept extensive diaries throughout his travels. These entries formed much of the inspiration for this book.
JOHN SINGER SARGENT (1856-1925) Born in Florence to American parents, Sargent grew up abroad and learned to draw and paint at an early age. A friend of Monet’s, he was the most famous American artist to visit Giverny. Although he never stayed very long, Sargent traveled to Giverny regularly to paint outdoors with Monet and visit with his family. The two artists exhibited together in Paris and collected each other’s work. Sargent traveled extensively throughout his life, capturing in oil and watercolor the scenic places he visited and the friends and family who traveled with him.
ROBERT VONNOH (1858-1933) An important Boston artist and teacher, Robert Vonnoh traveled to France for the first time in 1880 to study in Paris. Later, on his honeymoon, he would return to France, this time to visit the artists’ colony at Grez-sur-Loing, near the Forest of Fontainebleau. An extended stay in Grez resulted in a one-man exhibition in Boston, and in 1891 Vonnoh began teaching at the Pennsylvania Academy of Fine Arts. Among his students there were Robert Henri and Maxfield Parrish.
AUTHOR’S NOTE
Charlotte Glidden is not a real person, although there could very well have been an American girl just like her living in Giverny in the early 1890s. Her journal is, however, based on historical fact. Many of the artists who migrated there at that time brought their families with them. They went to paint outdoors in the French Impressionist style—en plein air—in the beautiful Normandy countryside. Some came for brief stays at the Baudy Hôtel; others, like the fictitious Glidden family of this book, settled more permanently in the picturesque village and built studios near the houses they rented or bought.
Visitors are still drawn to this beloved artist colony, to paint; to see Monet’s house and gardens, which have been lovingly restored; and to visit the Musée Américain, a beautiful museum devoted to the works of the American Impressionists who painted in Giverny. Whereas the paintings at the Monet Museum are reproductions, all of the paintings in the superb collection of the Musée Américain are originals.
I am grateful to Monsieur Philippe Piguet for the use of photographs from his collection, as well as to Madame Marie-Christine Bosson of the Musée Américain Giverny and Mr. John Maxtone-Graham of the New York Ocean Liner Museum for their help and interest.
Text copyright © 2000 by Joan MacPhail Knight.
Watercolor illustrations copyright © 2000 by Melissa Sweet.
All rights reserved.
Book design by Gretchen Scoble and Susan Van Horn.
Typeset in Melissa Sweet Two, and Adobe Garamond.
ISBN 978-1-4521-2565-7
Library of Congress Cataloging-in-Publication Data available.
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