Claude Monet - Marée basse aux Petites-Dalles 1884
Marée basse aux Petites-Dalles 1884
60x73cm oil/canvas
Sold for: USD 9.88 million
Auction house: Sotheby’s, New York
Sale date: 09 May 2016
Seller: Acquavella Galleries, New York
Buyer: Anonymous buyer
From Sotheby’s, New York:
During the period in which the present work was created, Monet was enraptured by the cliffs at Étretat, and depicted them from numerous angles and in varying weather conditions. Discussing the importance of the Norman coast within Monet’s oeuvre, Paul Hayes Tucker noted: “Without doubt his favourite site during the 1880s was the Normandy coast; it obviously was in his blood from his childhood in Le Havre and Sainte-Adresse and was easily accessible from Vétheuil and later from Giverny where he moved in 1883. Of all the places he visited on the coast, several became his most frequented - Pourville, Varengeville, Etretat, and Dieppe. Their appeal lay primarily in their dramatic cliffs and stretches of beach, their simplicity, starkness, and past history” (P. H. Tucker, Claude Monet: Life and Art, New Haven & London, 1995, p. 107).