Oil paint on canvas
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<a href="https://www.tate.org.uk/art/artists/claude-monet-1652" aria-label="More by Claude Monet" data-gtm-name="header_link_artist" data-gtm-destination="page--artist">Claude Monet</a>
Poplars on Epte
Presented by the Art Fund 1926
bank
cities, towns, villages (non-UK)
cloud
countries and continents
emotions, concepts and ideas
formal qualities
France
landscape
Limetz
natural features (non-UK)
places
poplar
rhythm
river
River Epte
sky
space
sunshine
water: inland
weather
<p>In the summer of 1891 Monet learned that a row of poplars on the river Epte, near to his home at Giverny, were to be felled. Monet paid for them to be left standing long enough for him to paint them. In all he executed twenty-three paintings of this scene, and exhibited a group of them together in 1892. Eleven of these show this same view at different times of day and in different weather conditions. A particularly marked feature of this work is its combination of a strong surface pattern, emphasised by vigorous brushwork, and the suggestion of pictorial depth conveyed by the continuous zig-zag of trees leading back into the distance.</p><p><em>Gallery label, August 2004</em></p>
painting oil paint canvas
5 March 1997
5 March 1997
1997-03-05
National Gallery (London, UK)
http://www.nationalgallery.org.uk
1997-03-05
Long Loan to the National Gallery
Loan-out
1 November 2000 – 8 September 2001
2001-09-08
1 November 2000 – 28 January 2001
2001-01-28
2000-11-01
National Gallery (London, UK)
http://www.nationalgallery.org.uk
2 March 2001 – 20 May 2001
2001-05-20
2001-03-02
Van Gogh Museum (Amsterdam, Netherlands)
http://www.vangoghmuseum.nl/
16 June 2001 – 8 September 2001
2001-09-08
2001-06-16
Sterling and Francine Clark Art Institute (Williamstown, USA)
http://www.clarkart.edu/
2000-11-01
Impression: Painting Quickly in France
Loan-out
29 September 2001 – 10 February 2002
2002-02-10
29 September 2001 – 10 February 2002
2002-02-10
2001-09-29
Casa dei Carraresi (Treviso, Italy)
2001-09-29
Monet l luoghi della pittura
Loan-out
26 November 2001 – 12 May 2002
2002-05-12
26 November 2001 – 10 February 2002
2002-02-10
2001-11-26
State Pushkin Museum of Fine Arts (Moscow, Russia)
1 February 2002 – 12 May 2002
2002-05-12
2002-02-01
State Hermitage Museum (St Petersburg, Russia)
2001-11-26
Monet
Loan-out
26 May 2006 – 24 September 2006
2006-09-24
20 May 2006 – 24 September 2006
2006-09-24
2006-05-20
Staatsgalerie (Stuttgart, Germany)
http://www.staatsgalerie.de/
2006-05-26
Claude Monet - Fields in Spring
Loan-out
11 October 2009 – 28 February 2010
2010-02-28
11 October 2009 – 28 February 2010
2010-02-28
2009-10-11
Von der Heydt Museum (Wuppertal, Germany)
2009-10-11
Claude Monet
Loan-out
20 September 2010 – 24 January 2011
2011-01-24
20 September 2010 – 24 January 2011
2011-01-24
2010-09-20
Galeries Nationales du Grand Palais (Paris, France)
2010-09-20
Monet
Loan-out
8 October 2011 – 28 May 2012
2012-05-28
8 October 2011 – 15 January 2012
2012-01-15
2011-10-08
Moderna Museet (Stockholm, Sweden)
11 February 2012 – 28 May 2012
2012-05-28
2012-02-11
Staatsgalerie (Stuttgart, Germany)
http://www.staatsgalerie.de/
2011-10-08
On the Other Side of Air:Later paintings by Turner, Monet, Twombly
Loan-out
8 October 2011 – 28 October 2012
2012-10-28
8 October 2011 – 8 January 2012
2012-01-08
2011-10-08
Moderna Museet (Stockholm, Sweden)
11 February 2012 – 28 May 2012
2012-05-28
2012-02-11
Staatsgalerie (Stuttgart, Germany)
http://www.staatsgalerie.de/
29 June 2012 – 28 October 2012
2012-10-28
2012-06-29
Tate Liverpool (Liverpool, UK)
http://www.tate.org.uk/liverpool/
2011-10-08
Turner Monet Twombly: Later Paintings
Exhibition
27 April 2013 – 29 September 2013
2013-09-29
27 April 2013 – 29 September 2013
2013-09-29
2013-04-27
Musée des Beaux-Arts de Rouen (Rouen, France)
2013-04-27
Normandie Impressionniste
Loan-out
9 October 2014 – 13 September 2015
2015-09-13
9 October 2014 – 8 February 2015
2015-02-08
2014-10-09
Musée du Luxembourg (Paris, France)
4 March 2015 – 31 May 2015
2015-05-31
2015-03-04
National Gallery (London, UK)
http://www.nationalgallery.org.uk
18 June 2015 – 13 September 2015
2015-09-13
2015-06-18
Philadelphia Museum of Art (Philadelphia, USA)
http://www.philamuseum.org
2014-10-09
Paul Durand-Ruel and Impressionism
Loan-out
22 January 2017 – 28 May 2017
2017-05-28
22 January 2017 – 28 May 2017
2017-05-28
2017-01-22
Fondation Beyeler (Riehen/Basel, Switzerland)
http://www.beyeler.com
2017-01-22
Monet - Reflections and Shadows
Loan-out
20 September 2018 – 6 January 2019
2019-01-06
20 September 2018 – 6 January 2019
2019-01-06
2018-09-20
Albertina Museum (Vienna, Austria)
http://www.albertina.at/en
2018-09-20
Claude Monet - Impression and Emotion
Loan-out
15 October 2019 – 26 January 2020
2020-01-26
15 October 2019 – 26 January 2020
2020-01-26
2019-10-15
Museo Nacional Thyssen-Bornemisza (Madrid, Spain)
2019-10-15
Manet, Degas, the Impressionists and Photography
Loan-out
8 June 2021 – 14 January 2024
2024-01-14
8 July 2021 – 14 November 2021
2021-11-14
2021-07-08
Museum of Art Pudong (Shanghai, China)
20 December 2021 – 8 May 2022
2022-05-08
2021-12-20
Buk-Seoul Museum of Art (Seoul, South Korea)
15 June 2022 – 13 November 2022
2022-11-13
2022-06-15
ACMI (Melbourne, Australia)
25 February 2023 – 25 June 2023
2023-06-25
2023-02-25
Auckland Art Gallery (Auckland, New Zealand)
12 July 2023 – 2 October 2023
2023-10-02
2023-07-12
National Art Center (Tokyo, Japan)
26 October 2023 – 14 January 2024
2024-01-14
2023-10-26
Nakanoshima Museum of Art (Osaka, Japan)
2021-06-08
Light
Tate partnerships & programmes
1 May 2025 – 1 May 2026
2026-05-01
1 May 2025 – 1 May 2026
2026-05-01
2025-05-01
National Gallery (London, UK)
http://www.nationalgallery.org.uk
2025-05-01
National Gallery Bicentenary
Loan-out
Poplars on the Epte
support: 924 × 737 mm
frame: 1106 × 954 × 115 mm
Presented by the <a href="/search?gid=999999968" data-gtm-name="tombstone_link_bequest" data-gtm-destination="list-page--search-results">Art Fund</a> 1926
<p>In the summer of 1891 Monet learned that a row of poplars on the river Epte, near to his home at Giverny, were to be felled. Monet paid for them to be left standing long enough for him to paint them. In all he executed twenty-three <a class="glossarylinktopopup" data-gtm-destination="article-page" data-gtm-name="body_text_link" href="http://www.tate.org.uk/learn/online-resources/glossary/p/painting" title="Glossary definition for 'Painting'"><span>paintings</span></a> of this scene, and exhibited a group of them together in 1892. Eleven of these show this same view at different times of day and in different weather conditions. A particularly marked feature of this work is its combination of a strong surface pattern, emphasised by vigorous brushwork, and the suggestion of pictorial depth conveyed by the continuous zig-zag of trees leading back into the distance.</p>
Display caption
2004-08-31T00:00:00
display-caption
DISPLAY_CAPTION
<p><b>Claude Monet</b> 1840-1926</p>
<p><a class="acno-pop" data-gtm-destination="page--artwork" data-gtm-name="body_text_link" href="https://www.tate.org.uk/art/artworks/monet-poplars-on-the-epte-n04183" title="View the details of this artwork"><span>N04183</span></a> <b>Les Peupliers au Bord de l'Epte</b> (Poplars on the Epte) 1891</p>
<p>Inscribed 'Claude Monet 90' b.r. 
<br/>Oil on canvas, 36 3/8 x 29 (92 x 74) 
<br/>Presented by the National Art-Collections Fund 1926 
<br/><i>Prov</i>: [? Russian private collector (purchased from the artist)]; with Paul Rosenberg, Paris; NACF 1926 
<br/><i>Exh</i>: [? <i>Exposition d'Oeuvres Récentes de M. Claude Monet</i> (Série des Peupliers), Durand-Ruel, Paris, February-March 1892 (8)]; <i>Quelques Oeuvres par Claude Monet</i>, Paul Rosenberg, Paris, October-November 1924 (15); <i>Opening Exhibition of the Modern Foreign Gallery</i>, Tate Gallery, June-October 1926 (works not numbered); <i>Claude Monet</i>, RSA, Edinburgh, August-September 1957 (90, repr.); Tate Gallery, September-November 1957 (90, repr.); <i>Claude Monet: Seasons and Moments</i>, Museum of Modern Art, New York, March-May 1960 (54); Los Angeles County Museum, June-August 1960 (54) 
<br/><i>Lit</i>: Théodore Duret, <i>Manet and the French Impressionists</i> (London 1910), p.144; Marc Elder, <i>A Giverny, chez Claude Monet</i> (Paris 1924), p.12; Gustave Geffroy, <i>Claude Monet: sa Vie, son Oeuvre</i> (Paris 1924), Vol.2, pp.59-62; Lilla Cabot Perry, 'Reminiscences of Claude Monet from 1889 to 1909' in <i>American Magazine of Art</i>, XVIII, 1927, p.121; Lionello Venturi, <i>Les Archives de l'Impressionnisme</i> (Paris-New York 1939), Vol.1, pp.340-2; Oscar Reuterswärd, <i>Monet</i> (Stockholm 1948), pp.195-200, repr. p.196; René Gimpel, <i>Journal d'un Collectionneur Marchand de Tableaux</i> (Paris 1963), pp.318-19; Daniel Wildenstein, <i>Claude Monet: Biographie et Catalogue raisonné</i> (Lausanne-Paris 1979), Vol.3, No.1300, p.148, repr. p.149 as 'Les Peupliers au Bord de l'Epte' 1891 
<br/><i>Repr: Burlington Magazine</i>, XLIX, 1926, p.16; <i>The Tate Gallery</i> (London 1969), p.100</p>
<p>One of a series of twenty-three <a class="glossarylinktopopup" data-gtm-destination="article-page" data-gtm-name="body_text_link" href="http://www.tate.org.uk/learn/online-resources/glossary/p/painting" title="Glossary definition for 'Painting'"><span>paintings</span></a> of the poplars on the left bank of the Epte near Limetz about two miles from Giverny, executed during the warmer months of 1891. As the township of Limetz sold the poplars on 2 August while Monet was still working on this series, he arranged with the lumber dealer who wanted the wood to make a contribution to the purchase price on condition that the trees were left standing for a few more months. Finishing touches were added to several of the paintings in February 1892, just before the opening of his exhibition of 15 works from this series at the Galerie Durand-Ruel towards the end of that month.</p>
<p>Most of the paintings were made from a position from which he could take advantage of the S curve formed by the poplars as they lined the winding bank of the river (a long and sinuous curve which is said by Duret to have reminded him of the line of cedars in Hiroshige's 'Fifty-three stations of the Tokaido'), and eleven show more or less this view, with six to eight trees in the foreground and a broad expanse of foliage above. The series was painted from a flat-bottomed boat fitted with slots to hold a number of <a class="glossarylinktopopup" data-gtm-destination="article-page" data-gtm-name="body_text_link" href="http://www.tate.org.uk/learn/online-resources/glossary/c/canvas" title="Glossary definition for 'Canvas'"><span>canvases</span></a>. Some of the effects only lasted a few minutes, when he took out the next canvas and worked on that. The paintings depict different effects of light and different times of the day.</p>
<p>All the other pictures of this viewpoint are either dated 1891 or are undated, and it seems that the date 1890 on this one was a mistake and that it must have been painted at the same time as the others and signed and dated some time later. (The inscription appears to be in the handwriting of Monet's old age). It has been left in a sketchy condition, whereas the others are more finished and mostly show signs of extensive reworking. Mme Blanche Hoschedé-Monet told Oscar Reuterswärd that it was Monet's favourite version and occupied a place of honour in his studio for several years, until he was persuaded to sell it to a Russian collector. Little is known about its early <a class="glossarylinktopopup" data-gtm-destination="article-page" data-gtm-name="body_text_link" href="http://www.tate.org.uk/learn/online-resources/glossary/p/provenance" title="Glossary definition for 'Provenance'"><span>provenance</span></a>, but a torn label on the back of the packers Day and Meyer, Murray and Young, Corp., of New York shows that it was in New York some time prior to its acquisition by the Tate.</p>
<p><b>Published in</b>: 
<br/>Ronald Alley, <i>Catalogue of the Tate Gallery's Collection of Modern Art other than Works by British Artists</i>, Tate Gallery and Sotheby Parke-Bernet, London 1981, pp.537-9, reproduced p.537</p>

Catalogue entry
2004-09-15T00:00:00
catalogue-entry
CATALOGUE_ENTRY
bank cities, towns, villages (non-UK) cloud countries and continents emotions, concepts and ideas formal qualities France landscape Limetz natural features (non-UK) places poplar rhythm river River Epte sky space sunshine water: inland weather