“It was possible to cross the Seine on foot”: the Vernon museum picks up the table “Les Éclons” de Monet

Blocks of ice in the Seine? Impossible to design today. And yet, in the 19th and early twentieth century, the phenomenon was not so rare and the harsh winters the norm. The weather reports of the time are not the only way to know it. The artists also immortalized these periods. To “tell” these climatic developments, the Musée d’Orsay has decided to select and lend a hundred works addressing this theme to partner establishments in the regions.

An opportunity that the Vernon’s White Hosted-Monet Museum (Eure) did not want to let pass. “This corresponded completely to our cultural and scientific project which questions the relationship of art in the world of lifetime and our time,” says its director, Nicolas Bondenet who therefore responded to this call for candidates after being preselected by management regional cultural affairs.

As a result, from March 11, visitors will be able to discover how Claude Monet represented with his canvas “Les icons” the debacle of the Seine of 1880. A striking episode in the history of Paris during which batteries from the Pont des Invalides had sold. And during which the river charged for days the pieces of a real ice floe which had formed on its surface. “He painted him in Moisson, near Vétheuil a dozen kilometers from Vernon, a place he appreciated,” continues Nicolas Bondenet.

“This work testifies to winters which no longer exist where it was sometimes possible to cross the Seine on foot. It seems incredible today, “adds Nicole Balmary, the assistant to culture and heritage, delighted to welcome until June 30 this masterpiece who comes to join two other canvases of Claude Monet,” the Basin aux Nympheas “and” La Plage au Pourville “that the municipal museum already has.

The opportunity to discover Blanche Hoschéde-Monet

Because it is also for the museum the opportunity to highlight the rest of its collections where natural history has rubs shoulders with the history of art since its origins. On the one hand by bringing together works, but also photographic reproductions and objects, evoking the climate and its evolution since the 16th century. And on the other hand by creating a course through the establishment to discover its riches, in particular the canvases of Blanche Hoschéde-Monet, a close to the master of the impressionist, model and assistant, but especially his only student.