114. Étienne Clémentel
1864-1936
Monet à Giverny, 1920 Autochrome. 7 x 9 1/2 in. (17.8 x 24.1 cm) Estimate $15,000-25,000 Provenance Artcurial, Paris, 21 November 2005, lot 37
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The photographs in this and the preceding two lots were taken by Étienne Clémentel, a French politician, painter, photographer, and a friend to many artists of his day. One such artist was Auguste Rodin, who sculpted a portrait bust of Clémentel in 1916. Another was Claude Monet. Visiting the Impressionist painter at his home and gardens in Giverny, Clémentel produced a multi-image portrait of the artist and his home. Monet had purchased Giverny in 1883 and immediately began an ambitious series of building and landscaping that would create the lush and colorful environment we see in these photographs. Clémentel made these photographs in autochrome, the frst commercially available color photographic process, one that yielded richly saturated images on glass. From an aesthetic point of view, autochromes, with their sofly granular and impressionistic quality, were the perfect medium for Monet and Giverny. In this trio of images, we see the pond Monet designed himself, a large two-panel Les Nymphéas (waterlilies) painting in his studio, and the artist among the fowers in his garden.
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