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Le Palais Ducal

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Claude Monet,Le Palais Ducal,1908
Brooklyn version, W1743
Goeritz version, Sotheby's, W1744

Le Palais DucalorThe Doge's Palaceis the name given to various oil paintings which depict theDoge's Palace(in Italian, "Palazzo Ducale",translated to French as"LePalais Ducal") made byClaude Monetduring a visit to Venice in 1908.

Description

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Monet painted the Doge's Palace from several viewpoints during his three-month sojourn in Venice, from October to December 1908. The titleLe Palais Ducalgenerally refers to three similar paintings dominated by the palace itself, painted from a boat moored in the lagoon: one in the collection of Adele and Herbert J. Klapper in the US, a second in theBrooklyn Museum,and a third in a private collection of the Goeritz family in the UK from the 1920s until it was sold atSotheby'sin February 2019. They are catalogued byWildensteinasW1742 to W1744.

TheImpressionistwork is painted with dappled brushstrokes in a bright palette of pinks, yellows and blues, bathed in a warm light. It is roughly divided into two horizontal zones. The upper part depicts the pink and white diamond patterned stonework of theVenetian Gothicpalace walls pierced by arched windows with colonnaded arcades on the lower two floors, the blue sky above, theLion of Venicecolumn in thePiazzetta di San Marcoto the left, andPonte della Pagliaand the New Prison (Prigioni Nuove) building to the right. The lower part is filled with the rippling waters of theVenetian lagoonand the reflection of the buildings.

Monet had intended to return to paint in Venice again, but the illness of his second wifeAlice Hoschedéprevent him travelling. He continued to work on many of his Venetian paintings when he returned home toGiverny,until they were shown in a critically acclaimed exhibition atGalerie Bernheim-Jeunein May 1912.Paul Signacconsidered these paintings to be one of Monet's greatest achievements.

Influence by the Venetian school

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Veduta del bacino di San Marco dalla Punta della Dogana(1740-1745) by Canaletto - Brera[1]
Le Môle, vu du bassin de San Marco(1730-1755) by Giovanni Antonio Canal (il Canaletto) - Louvre[2]

Eighteenth centurycityscapesby Venetian artists such asCanaletto'sBacino di San Marco from the Puntana della Doganapainting, now at thePinacoteca di Brerain Milan, orThe Molo, Seen from the Bacino di San Marco,now in theLouvrein Paris, may have been an inspiration to Monet for choosing the framing of his composition.

Monet's other versions

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One version ofLe Palais Ducal(W1742) was exhibited at theGalerie Bernheim-Jeunein Paris in 1912, and sold via theGalerie Durand-Ruelin 1917 toPierre DubeidinNeuchâtel,and then viaGalerie Caspariin Munich toMax Emdenin Berlin. Emden, a Jewish department store owner, was persecuted by the Nazis in the 1930s, and some of his artworks were sold in unclear circumstances via Swiss dealers. It seems the painting came into the private collection ofHermann LütjensofKüsnachtnear Zürich, and was later acquired byErich Maria Remarqueand held in his collection inLocarnoby 1959. It was sold by Remarque's widowPaulette Goddardin New York in 1979, and acquired by a dealer who sold to Adele and Herbert J. Klapper in 1980. The painting measures 73 cm × 92 cm (29 in × 36 in), and is signed and dated "Claude Monet 1908". The Klappers kept it in their private collection until at least 2011. After the deaths of Herbert in 1999 and Adele in 2018, some works from their collection (but excluding this Monet) were auctioned at Christie's in New York in November 2018.

A second version in the Brooklyn Museum (W1743) measures 32 in × 39 in (810 mm × 990 mm). It was auctioned in New York in 1920, along with other works by Monet from the collection of the doctorArthur Brewster Emmons.It was bought by the American leather dealer and art collectorAaron Augustus Healyand donated to the Brooklyn Museum the same year, the year before his death.

A third version (W1744) was also exhibited at theGalerie Bernheim-Jeunein Paris in 1912. It was consigned toPaul Cassirerin Berlin in 1914, and sold toHans Wendlandin 1918. It was sold viaThannhauser Galleriesto the German textile merchant and art collectorErich Goeritz[de]in 1926, and was held mainly in England after he emigrated in the 1930s. It was loaned toToronto Art Museumfrom 1946 until 1950, and after the death of Erich Goeritz in 1955 it was inherited by his sonThomas Goeritz.Signed and dated "Claude Monet 1908", it measures 81 cm × 93 cm (32 in × 37 in). This painting was sold by the descendants of the Goeritz family at Sotheby's in London in February 2019 for £27.5m, setting an auction record for one of Monet's Venetian paintings. On the recommendation of theReviewing Committee on the Export of Works of Art,anexport licencehas been temporarily withheld by theDepartment for Digital, Culture, Media and Sportto permit another buyer to match the price, to keep the painting in the UK.

Similar paintings by Monet

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Monet painted two other views of the Doge's Palace in 1908. One of these views showsThe Doge's Palace Seen from San Giorgio Maggiore— of which six versions are known (W1751 to W1756) —, offering a more distant viewpoint across theBacino di San Marcocanal from the piazza in front ofPalladio's abbey church ofSan Giorgio Maggiore.Another shows a more oblique point of view from further east, one version of which also was owned by Wendland and Erich Goeritz, but sold toJakob Goldschmidtin about 1928, confiscated by theNazi regime,and recovered after theSecond World Warby Erwin Goldschmidt, and sold at Sotheby's in 2015 for US$23m to a private collector. This collector later turned out to be the German billionaireHasso Plattner,founder of the newMuseum Barberini,a reconstructed palace in a neo-baroquestyle which opened in 2017 inPotsdam,built to house his newly acquired collection of Impressionist and Post-Impressionist French paintings.[3],[4]

See also

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References

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  1. ^"View of the Basin of San Marco from the Punta della Dogana - Canaletto (Giovanni Antonio Canal)".pinacotecabrera.org.Retrieved2024-03-23.
  2. ^Canaletto (Antonio Canal, dit); Venise, Italie Vénétie (1730),Le Môle, vu du bassin de San Marco,retrieved2024-03-23
  3. ^"(#40) Claude Monet".Sothebys.com.Retrieved2024-03-23.
  4. ^"Museum Barberini | Claude Monet: The Palazzo Ducale".sammlung.museum-barberini.de.Retrieved2024-03-23.
  5. ^"sale lot 47, 11 Nov 1992:" Le Palais ducal vu de Saint-Georges Majeur "".Christie's.
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