Le Palais Dario

Le Palais Dario (Wildenstein 1760) is the smallest of Claude Monet's four views of the Palazzo Dario on the Grand Canal, painted in Venice in 1908. At 56 by 66.5 centimeters it is less than two thirds the size of the others, and it is the most intensely colored. It is in a private collection.

What you're looking at

The facade fills most of the canvas, cropped at the top so no roofline shows. Monet paints it not in cream but in violet and mauve over a whitish ground: the arched windows are deep purple, the round marble discs are blots of plum and rose, and the large circular ornament high on the right is a dark violet wheel. At the water door a gondola lies moored, its long hull drawn in a confident sweep of saturated blue.

The colors are pushed further than in any other version. On the left, the neighboring Gothic palace is a hot coral pink. On the right, a dark building in violet shadow is cut by a vertical shaft of yellow, the sun striking through a gap or lighting the far side of a building, and that yellow repeats in bright broken dashes on the water below. The canal is a busy weave of violet, emerald, blue and yellow-green strokes, more agitated than the calm sheets of water in the larger canvases. Monet's signature, Claude Monet, is at the lower left.

The palace and the season

The Palazzo Dario was built in the late fifteenth century for Giovanni Dario and is known for its colored marble facade and porphyry discs, and for its distinct lean. It stands on the Dorsoduro side of the Grand Canal, nearly opposite the Palazzo Barbaro where Monet and his wife Alice first stayed in October 1908. They spent about ten weeks in Venice before leaving in early December, and Monet completed the canvases at Giverny over the next few years.

How this version differs

Placed beside its siblings, this one is the outlier. The Chicago Venice, Palazzo Dario is cool turquoise and cream. Cardiff's The Palazzo Dario is pale and pastel, with water filling half the canvas. The larger private Palazzo Dario is warm gold over dark olive. Here the palette is violet and complementary yellow, the format is nearly square and small, and the handling is quick and emphatic: thicker strokes, stronger outlines on the windows, a more energetic canal. It may have been worked faster, or in a brief burst of sun; the yellow light at the right is unique among the four.

How it was painted

The surface is more visibly brushed than the others, with individual strokes of unmixed color standing side by side: purple next to yellow in the water, pink next to green on the left-hand palace. The gondola's blue is laid in a single loaded stroke. The effect recalls the stronger contrasts of the Grand Canal views, where the mooring poles cut through the haze.

Ownership and where to see it

The canvas has passed through the art market, including sales at Sotheby's, and its present owner is not publicly recorded. Two of the four Palazzo Dario canvases are in public museums, in Chicago and Cardiff. For the other Venice subjects see Monet in Venice; for Monet in public collections, Where to See Monet's Paintings.