A Corner of the Apartment

Un coin d'appartement (A Corner of the Apartment) is one of Claude Monet's rare interiors: a tall view into a room of his house at Argenteuil, where his son Jean stands on a gleaming parquet floor and his wife Camille sits half-hidden by a table. Signed and dated 1875 and catalogued by Wildenstein as no. 365, it was owned by Gustave Caillebotte, came to the French state with his bequest in 1894, and is now in the Musée d'Orsay in Paris.

What you're looking at

The picture is a corridor of space. In the foreground two tall potted shrubs in blue-and-white ceramic jardinières stand on either side, their feathery yellow-green leaves filling the upper corners, with the patterned curtains of a doorway behind them. Below, two more plants with long sword-shaped leaves spill out of matching pots. Together they make a green proscenium through which we look into the room.

The floor, a herringbone parquet, runs straight back toward a window hung with white curtains. It is polished to a deep blue sheen, catching the light from the window as long, pale reflections. In the center stands Jean, about eight years old, in a dark suit with a white collar, hands at his sides, looking out at us. Behind him is a round table, and to the left, almost dissolved in shadow, Camille sits in a bluish dress. Above hangs a crystal chandelier with candles, and in front of the window an oil lamp with a dark shade. The signature and date, Claude Monet 75, are at the bottom center.

Where and when it was painted

In 1874 the Monets moved to a newly built house on the boulevard Saint-Denis in Argenteuil, near the railway station, where they lived until early 1878. Monet painted its garden many times, but this view inside is unusual. It is mostly dark, built on contrasts of blue shadow and window light, and its subject is as much the atmosphere of the room as the people in it. The family was then under real financial strain, and some writers have seen the rigid, distant figure of Jean and the shadowy Camille as an image of unease, though Monet left no comment on it. See Monet at Argenteuil.

How it was painted

The painting's vertical format, 81.5 by 60.5 centimeters, is rare for Monet in these years. He treats the interior with the same broken brushwork as an outdoor scene: the leaves are painted in loose, dragged strokes of yellow and green, the floor in long, gleaming bands of blue and violet, the curtains in mottled touches of red, ocher and blue. The strong backlight from the window and the blue cast of the shadows make the room feel lit by daylight from outside rather than by its lamps.

Related works

Monet more often painted his family out of doors, as in Woman with a Parasol of the same year, which shows Camille and Jean on a breezy hilltop, or Walk near Argenteuil. Indoors, his other well-known image of Camille from these years is La Japonaise of 1876, a large studio piece with a very different, theatrical mood. The closest outdoor counterpart is The Luncheon, set in the garden of the earlier Argenteuil house, where Jean also appears playing beside a laid table.

Ownership and where to see it

The French state's records note that the painting was in the sale of Impressionist works at the Hôtel Drouot on 24 March 1875 (no. 14). It was shown at the third Impressionist exhibition in 1877 and was later owned by Gustave Caillebotte, whose bequest to the state was accepted in 1894; it entered the Musée du Luxembourg in 1896, later the Louvre, and moved to the Musée d'Orsay in 1986 (inventory RF 2776). For other works by Monet there, see Monet at the Musée d'Orsay.