Michael Bahlo
40th Work by Claude Monet in the Collection
June 2024 - Another work by Claude Monet will be on view in the Hasso Plattner Collection at the Museum Barberini. Antibes Seen from the Salis Gardens, painted in 1888, was acquired by the Hasso Plattner Foundation on May 15—exactly
150 years after the close of the first joint exhibition of the Impressionists. With this piece, the Museum Barberini welcomes the fortieth painting by Claude Monet and the third purchase of this anniversary year into the Hasso Plattner Collection, which now includes 114 works
The painting will be displayed on the second floor of the growing collection, where it will enrich the room devoted to European coastlines. In addition to works by Henri-Edmond Cross and Paul Signac, the gallery features seascapes by Monet, painted in Normandy in the 1880s. Three works show the artist’s painterly exploration of Venice in 1908, while other landscapes represent his first journey to the south in 1884. In 1888, Monet once again traveled to the Riviera to sites including Antibes, where he painted The Fort of Antibes, on view since 2020 in the Museum Barberini on permanent loan from the Hasso Plattner Foundation. The new acquisition now makes it possible to directly compare this painting with a work depicting the same motif, viewed through shady trees. Both works were painted in the gardens of La Salis on the opposite side of the bay. As the comparison shows, during his travels in the 1880s Monet was already laying the groundwork for later series such as the Grainstacks or Water Lilies by painting the same motif in changing atmospheres of light.
Michael Bahlo
The two views of Antibes now displayed in the Hasso Plattner Collection were probably already on view together in 1889, the year of the Paris world exposition: Monet chose them for his dual exhibition with Auguste Rodin at the Galerie Georges Petit in Paris. For both artists, this show represented a breakthrough and introduced them to a broad international audience.
In 1897, Antibes Seen from the Salis Gardens was sold to the lawyer William H. Fuller, a friend and patron of Claude Monet. Until 1903, the work remained in Fuller’s collection, which also included Monet’s paintings Wheatfield of 1881 and Edge of the Cliff at Pourville of 1882, both of which now belong to the Hasso Plattner Collection. Not only was Fuller one of the first American collectors of Claude Monet, he also wrote the first monograph on the artist published in America (Claude Monet and His Paintings, New York, 1889).
