The Palazzo Ducale, Seen from San Giorgio Maggiore (Guggenheim)

The Palazzo Ducale, Seen from San Giorgio Maggiore (Le Palais Ducal vu de Saint-Georges Majeur) is one of six closely related views Claude Monet painted in 1908 from the island of San Giorgio, looking across the basin of San Marco to the Doge's Palace. This wide canvas, 65 by 100.5 centimeters, belongs to the Thannhauser Collection of the Solomon R. Guggenheim Museum in New York (91.3910).

What you're looking at

The picture is built in three horizontal bands. At the bottom, a dark blue wedge rises from the lower left to the lower right: the stone edge of the quay at San Giorgio, from where Monet looked. Above it, the lagoon spreads across the canvas in pale lilac, silver and pink strokes. And along the horizon, in a narrow strip, lies the waterfront of Venice.

The Doge's Palace sits right of center, its long facade glowing pale pink and yellow, the arcades suggested by a row of darker touches, the large windows as soft blue marks. To the left, separated by the low buildings of the Piazzetta, stands the Campanile of San Marco, painted as a slim tower of salmon and orange, the warmest note in the picture. Further left are the paler blocks of the Library and the Mint; to the right of the palace, the prison and the buildings along the Riva degli Schiavoni fade into the distance. The sky, a light veil of blue, gray and lavender, occupies about a third of the canvas. Signed and dated Claude Monet 1908 at the lower right.

The Campanile itself is a detail of the moment. The old tower had collapsed in July 1902, and in the autumn of 1908 its replacement was still being built; it was not completed until 1912.

How this version differs

Monet painted the view from San Giorgio six times. The Metropolitan Museum's version is a rosier, more saturated picture, and the Kunsthaus Zürich version is the palest, almost dissolved in cream and yellow haze. The Guggenheim canvas sits between them: the buildings are clear enough to name, the light is cool and silvery, and the dark foreground band is strong. That foreground is one of the most daring decisions in the group, a flat, almost abstract shape that pushes the city back and anchors the empty water.

Set against the close-up Doge's Palace in Brooklyn, painted from a gondola directly in front of the facade, these views turn the palace into one element in a long horizontal line of color.

Where and when

Monet stayed in Venice from early October to early December 1908 with his wife Alice, first at the Palazzo Barbaro and then at the Hotel Britannia. The island of San Giorgio Maggiore, where he set up for these views, lies across the basin from the Doge's Palace. He worked on the canvases at fixed hours and finished them at Giverny; twenty-nine Venice paintings were exhibited at Bernheim-Jeune in 1912.

How it was painted

The water is laid in short horizontal strokes, closely packed, with lilac, pale blue and touches of pink and green side by side. The city is painted more thinly, with soft dabs for windows and arcades. The dark foreground is a broad, more uniform area of blue-violet, brushed diagonally.

Ownership and where to see it

The painting belonged to the dealer Justin K. Thannhauser, whose collection of Impressionist and modern works came to the Guggenheim; it entered the museum with the bequest of his widow Hilde Thannhauser in 1991. It hangs in the Thannhauser galleries. For the whole Venice group see Monet in Venice; for other places to see Monet, see Where to See Monet's Paintings.