Argenteuil Basin with a Single Sailboat

Argenteuil Basin with a Single Sailboat is an autumn river view Claude Monet painted at Argenteuil, the boating town on the Seine just northwest of Paris, in 1874. On the right, a bank of trees in full autumn color leans over the water; on the left, the river opens out, silver-blue and rippling, with one small white sail far off. It has been in the National Gallery of Ireland in Dublin since 1924, and in 2012 it became known well beyond the art world after a visitor punched a hole in it.

What you're looking at

The canvas is divided almost in half on a diagonal. The right side is a tall mass of trees and bushes in gold, ocher, rust and dull pink, with a few blue-violet strokes for the shadowed branches inside. Their color drops into the water below as a broad warm reflection, broken into horizontal dashes of orange, cream and blue.

The left side is all air and water. The sky is pale gray-blue with streaks of white cloud, brushed in long diagonal strokes. Near the horizon a low strip of far bank, with tiny houses and a tree or two, catches a little light. On the water, a single sailboat, its triangular sail a soft pink-white, sits at the far left near the horizon, with a tiny reflection under it. The foreground water is a lively pattern of short strokes: deep blue for the troughs of the ripples, white and pale lilac for the light on their crests. Monet's signature runs along the lower right in red-brown.

Note how little actually happens on the water: one sail, no rowers, no figures on the bank. The emptiness is a deliberate choice in a place usually packed with boats.

Argenteuil and the basin

Monet lived at Argenteuil from the end of 1871 to early 1878. The basin, a wide stretch of the Seine by the town, was one of the main sailing centers near Paris and the setting for regattas. Monet painted it dozens of times, often from his floating studio, a small boat fitted with a cabin. Most of his basin pictures are summer scenes crowded with yachts, like The Basin at Argenteuil and Regatta at Argenteuil. This one is quieter: autumn, late in the sailing season, with a single boat on the water.

Another autumn canvas from the same period, Autumn Effect at Argenteuil in the Courtauld, is a close relative, with a similar wall of golden trees on one bank. For the whole Argenteuil period, see Monet at Argenteuil, and for the floating studio, The Studio Boat.

How it was painted

The painting is small, 55 by 65 centimeters, and quickly done outdoors. The trees are built up in thick, crusty dabs of warm color, the sky in thin, dragged strokes, and the water in rows of short, separate horizontal marks. The contrast between the warm right half and the cool left half carries the picture. Monet even lets the warm reflections cross into the cool water, as if the trees' color were seeping across the river.

The 2012 attack and restoration

The Irish playwright Edward Martyn bought the painting in 1899, on the advice of his cousin, the novelist George Moore, and bequeathed it to the National Gallery of Ireland in 1924. On 29 June 2012 a visitor punched the canvas, leaving a large three-armed tear through the water and sky. The attacker was later jailed. Conservators spent some eighteen months repairing it, rejoining broken threads and retouching losses. The painting returned to the walls on 1 July 2014, now behind protective glass, and the gallery published an account of the restoration.

Where to see it

The painting hangs in the National Gallery of Ireland on Merrion Square, Dublin, where it is one of the most popular pictures in the collection and the best-known Monet in Ireland. For other collections, see where to see Monet's paintings.