Red Boats at Argenteuil

Claude Monet

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Keywords: RedBoatsArgenteuil

Work Overview

Red Boats at Argenteuil
Oil on canvas
56.0 x 67.0cm
Musée de l'Orangerie, Paris


Red Boats at Argenteuil is a painting by artist Claude Monet. It was painted in 1875.


Argenteuil is a town northwest of Paris, France. Claude Monet painted different locations and objects in Argenteuil many times.


The painting belongs to a museum in Paris, the Musée de l'Orangerie.


Monet returned to France from London in 1872 and settled in Argenteuil (a town on a picturesque stretch of the Seine, eleven kilometres from central Paris), where he lived until 1876. His contemporaries Pierre-Auguste Renoir, Édouard Manet and Alfred Sisley joined him and, for a time, Argenteuil became a hub of artistic activity. It was during this time that Monet created some of his most characteristic paintings. In order to observe the effects of sunlight on water more closely, Monet often worked from a boat-turned-studio. In Argenteuil, the rust-red boats, painted in contrasting colours to the blue water and sky and the green water plants, are depicted surrounded by shimmering light – perhaps the true subject of the painting.


This painting was one of Domenica Walter's last acquisitions (c.1955), reflecting her particular interest in Impressionism.