Camille Monet in Japanese Costume

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Camille Monet in Japanese Costume: Claude Monet

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Art Type: Oil Painting
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Claude Monet Oil Painting - Camille Monet in Japanese Costume

Keywords: Camille, Monet, Japanese, Costume

Work Overview: La Japonaise (Camille Monet in Japanese Costume)
Claude Monet
Date: 1876
Style: Japonism
Genre: portrait
Media: oil, canvas
Dimensions: 231.8 x 142.3 cm
Lorna and Robert Rosenberg Gallery

This painting depicts Camille Monet, the painter's wife, wrapped in a kimono and surrounded by fans. She wears a blond wig. The canvas was exhibited in 1876 at the second group exhibition of the Impressionists.

"In this painting, Monet makes reference to the Japanism which was in vogue during the
1860s, and not only in artist circles...Like many of his fellow artists, Monet also had a
collection of Japanese kimonos, fans, and screens, which can still be seen and admired in
his house in Giverny today.
As opposed to Monet's usual preference for everyday subjects, the arrangement of this
scene looks rather contrived. Camille's pose and her blond wig create a somewhat
artificial impression. The fans in the background seem to be floating in mid-air.
In retrospect, Monet took a critical view of this work (La Japonaise), calling it a
concession to the popular taste of its time. Nonetheless, it bears eloquent witness to the
fascination which the exotic held for Monet and his contemporaries."

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NARRATOR: We tend to think of Monet as a landscape painter. But he exhibited this exuberant painting in 1876 to demonstrate his ability to produce show-stopping figure paintings as well. The model is Monet’s wife, Camille, but far from being a straightforward portrait, this is a clever play on the contemporary vogue for everything Japanese.

I enjoy talking about this painting with George Shackelford, chair of the Department of the Art of Europe, here at the MFA.

GEORGE SHACKELFORD: It is a kind of Japanese fantasy…full of witty touches. Camille seems to be shielding her face with her fan…from the stare of the woman on the Japanese fan mounted on the wall. And here at the bottom this samurai warrior seems to be trapped on the kimono but struggling to get off it.

Take a look at the way Monet paints the actual kimono itself…if you look closely at the brushstrokes, you’ll see that they seem to be like embroidery. They have the texture…the luxury, the reflectiveness of the gold threads, the silks…and the beautiful stitch work that the kimono itself must have displayed.

And the whole thing, with this kind of S-curve of her body from the fan that she holds in her hands…curving down through the figure of the samurai…and on down to the hem of the skirt as it…fans out again…all of this is a kind of tour de force of style.

NARRATOR: The fashion for Japanese art and style swept through western Europe from the middle of the 19th century. As Japan opened up to European trade and visitors, its art and artifacts began to appear in European exhibitions, private collections, and department stores and specialty shops. In France, the craze was called Japonisme.

Monet and the other Impressionists admired the simplicity of line and the bold colors of Japanese art, and were profoundly influenced by it. Again, here’s George Shackelford:

GEORGE SHACKELFORD: Monet's reaction to Japanese art changed over time. In a painting like this, he's interested in the fashionableness of Japanese art and artifacts. Later in his career, by the time, say, he paints waterlilies in his garden at Giverny, he has a much more sophisticated understanding of Japanese art, and by then actually knows Japanese people and has seen much more of Japanese art than he had at this period in the 1870s.

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Monet exhibited this work at the second group show of the Impressionist painters in 1876, where it attracted much attention. Large-scale figure paintings had traditionally been considered the most significant challenge for an artist. Using this format, Monet created a virtuoso display of brilliant color that is also a witty comment on the current Paris fad for all things Japanese. The woman shown wrapped in a splendid kimono and surrounded by fans is Monet’s wife, Camille, wearing a blond wig to emphasize her Western identity.

April 14, 1876, Monet and Ernest Hoschedé sale, Hôtel Drouot, Paris, lot 37 [see note 1]. April 19, 1877, anonymous ("L.") sale, Hôtel Drouot, Paris, lot 48, to Constantin de Rasty (d. 1923), Paris; 1918, sold by Rasty to Paul Rosenberg and Co., Paris and New York [see note 2]; 1920, sold by Rosenberg to Philip Lehman (b. 1861 - d. 1947), New York [see note 3]; 1921, sold by Lehman to Duveen Brothers, Inc., London [see note 4]; 1937, shipped from Duveen, London to Duveen, New York; 1956, sold by Duveen to the MFA for $45,000. (Accession Date: March 8, 1956)

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