Waterloo Bridge (Kunsthaus Zürich, 1902)

Le Pont de Waterloo (Waterloo Bridge) is one of Claude Monet's views of the Thames from the Savoy Hotel, signed and dated 1902 at lower right. It measures 65 × 100 cm and is number 1581 in the Wildenstein catalogue raisonné. The Zürich businessman and collector Walter Haefner gave it to the Kunsthaus Zürich in 1995 (inv. 1995/0002). Labels on the back record earlier loans, including one from the American collector Aline Barnsdall to the Santa Barbara Museum of Art.

What you're looking at

The fog here is thick and cold: grey-green, sage and pale lilac, filling the sky and lying heavy on the water. The bridge is barely distinguishable, a long, slightly darker band across the middle with the ghost of a few arches. Above it, at upper left, a faint vertical shape and a tracery of green strokes suggest a chimney or tower, and the right side holds the vague mass of a building.

The drama is a single pool of light. Just below the bridge, on the water, the sun's reflection blazes in short horizontal strokes of orange, red-gold and yellow, spreading across the center like burning coals. A small white sail floats inside it. The sun itself is invisible, hidden in the fog above, and the light is known only by its reflection.

That is what makes this version distinct: the contrast between almost monochrome grey-green fog and one concentrated patch of fiery color. It is a picture about a brief moment when the sun's glare struck the river.

Where and when it was painted

Monet stayed at the Savoy in 1899, 1900 and 1901, painting Waterloo Bridge in the mornings. The Kunsthaus catalogue notes how quickly the effects changed, forcing him to move to another canvas after only a few minutes; over forty versions of the bridge are known. He finished and dated this one at Giverny in 1902.

How it was painted

The fog is built from dense, close-toned strokes laid over one another until forms disappear. The reflection is applied on top, thickly, in short, parallel horizontal dabs of pure warm color. That technique, a cool, uniform field broken by a single area of hot impasto, makes the light seem to glow from inside the canvas.

How this version differs

In the Waterloo Bridge series, the closest parallels are the National Gallery of Canada's Waterloo Bridge: the Sun in a Fog, where the orange path of light descends from a visible red sun, and the Hermitage's violet Waterloo Bridge, Effect of Fog. The Tokyo Waterloo Bridge in London, dated the same year, is its pale, pink opposite.

Monet's view from the Savoy

The Savoy Hotel, opened in 1889 on the north bank of the Thames between Charing Cross and Waterloo, offered Monet exactly what he needed: a high, sheltered viewpoint over the river, looking upstream to Charing Cross Bridge and the Houses of Parliament and downstream to Waterloo Bridge. He stayed in rooms on the fifth or sixth floor and worked from the balcony and windows. Waterloo Bridge lay to the east, so in the morning he looked toward the rising sun. That orientation explains why so many Waterloo Bridge canvases, like this one, show light breaking through fog from beyond the bridge.

Where to see it

The Kunsthaus Zürich holds one of the strongest Monet collections in Switzerland, including water lilies and, on loan from the Bührle Foundation, the Waterloo Bridge, London, Sun Effect. This canvas is not always on display. For more, see Monet in London, where to see Monet's paintings and Claude Monet.

Walter Haefner, a Swiss businessman and collector of Impressionist painting, gave the canvas to the Kunsthaus in 1995. Before that, labels on the back show, it belonged to the American oil heiress and patron Aline Barnsdall, who lent it to the Santa Barbara Museum of Art, and it traveled to the major Monet exhibition Monet in the 20th Century in Boston and London in 1998–99.