Claude Monet was no stranger to the Normandy coast, having spent his childhood in Le Havre. He spent time in Étretat from the 1860s onwards, when he was still in his twenties, making his first studies on this motif. During the winter of 1868-1869, he even rented a house with his family and worked on landscapes that would pave the way for Impressionism. His most ambitious work, however, was an interior scene, The Luncheon, he wished to show at the Paris Salon and which broke with convention because of its unusual format.
The artist's career took off in the early 1880s. Pressed by his dealer Paul Durand-Ruel to supply him with works and compelled by a need for money, Monet decided in 1883 to return to Étretat. He repeated the trip every year, for varying lengths of time, until 1886, preferring autumn or winter to avoid the crowds of summer visitors. He created a body of nearly 80 canvases, plus pastels, mainly exploring the motif of the cliffs. The works were begun in the open air, occasionally in acrobatic positions in search of an original viewpoint, but completed in the studio. Guy de Maupassant described the painter's creative process of working on several paintings at once, according to the effects of the weather and the light. In this way, he developed a sensitivity to the principle of working in series, which was to reach its culmination in the following decade.

Labels

Claude Monet
Paris (France), 1840 – Giverny, Eure (France), 1926
Étretat, Porte d’Aval
1864
Oil on canvas
Bordeaux, musée Mer marine 

Claude Monet
Paris (France), 1840 – Giverny, Eure (France), 1926
Étretat, Aval Cliff, Stormy Weather
Ca. 1868
Pastel on paper
Paris, Larock-Granoff Gallery

Claude Monet
Paris (France), 1840 – Giverny, Eure (France), 1926
The Luncheon
1868-1869
Oil on canvas
Frankfurt, Städel Museum
Property of the Städelsche Museums-Verein e.V.
Monet painted this ambitious work during his stay in Étretat in the winter of 1868-1869. This family scene shows his companion, Camille Doncieux, and her son Jean, sitting down to a hearty lunch. A woman standing, wearing a veil, appears to be visiting, while a maid peers through the doorway. The subject matter of this work is reminiscent of 18th-century French genre scenes, but in an unusually monumental format. It is an episode of modern life as the painter wished to magnify it, intended to be shown at the Paris Salon. Rejected by the jury in 1871, it was included in the first exhibition of the group of future Impressionists, held in 1874.

Claude Monet
Paris (France), 1840 – Giverny, Eure (France), 1926
Étretat, the Needle and the Porte d’Aval
1885
Pastel on beige paper
Paris, musée Marmottan Monet
Bequest of Michel Monet to the Academy of Fine Arts, 1966

Claude Monet
Paris (France), 1840 – Giverny, Eure (France), 1926
Étretat, the Needle and the Porte d’Aval
1885
Pastel on paper
Private collection
Monet produced several pastels during his stay in Étretat in the autumn of 1885, following on from his first works in this medium in 1868-1869. They were not directly related to paintings, and were characterised by their great freedom in formal invention. In particular, they take as their motif the silhouette of the Porte d'Aval. Over the course of the works, the silhouette becomes increasingly allusive, transforming itself into a quasi-abstract motif in the glowing red light of sunset.

Claude Monet
Paris (France), 1840 – Giverny, Eure (France), 1926
Étretat, the Cliff and the Porte d’Aval, Rough Sea
1883
Oil on canvas
Montserrat, Museu de Montserrat
Donation Xavier Busquets, 1990

Claude Monet
Paris (France), 1840 – Giverny, Eure (France), 1926
Rough Sea at Étretat
1883
Oil on canvas
Lyon, musée des Beaux-Arts
This painting is one of the first works Monet produced during his third visit to Étretat, in the winter of 1883. He painted it from the window of his room at the Hôtel Blanquet, facing the beach, working in a way that was common among the Impressionists at the time. This work is enlivened by the presence of two silhouettes of fishermen standing by their boats on the pebble shore, prevented from going out to sea by the inclement weather. On the left are three caloges*. Monet managed to convey the force of the elements with his dynamic brushstrokes. The sea and the cliffs seem caught up in the movement, breaking with the steadfastness of Courbet's views. The composition blends into a harmonious unity of colour, tying all the parts together.
* Out-of-use boats with a thatched roof used to store fishing gear.

Claude Monet
Paris (France), 1840 – Giverny, Eure (France), 1926
Étretat, the Manneporte, Seen from the East
1885
Oil on canvas
Philadelphia, Philadelphia Museum of Art
John G. Johnson Collection, 1917
Comparing these two views of La Manneporte, seen from the top of the cliffs at the Pointe de la Courtine, illustrates Monet's process of working on the same subject at different times of the day and in different light. In this way, the artist gradually established a method that would become a central feature of his work from the next decade onwards. The arch appears here first on a clear day, then again through a curtain of mist. Here we can still see the sedimentary strata that disappear in the other painting. Monet did not, however, seem to have any intention of exhibiting his canvases together as a series, and his main aim was to achieve the practical goal of always having at least one painting to work on, whatever the weather.

Claude Monet
Paris (France), 1840 – Giverny, Eure (France), 1926
Étretat, the Manneporte, Reflections on the Water
1885
Oil on canvas
Paris, Musée d'Orsay, on long-term loan to Caen, Musée des Beaux-Arts
Gift of Pierre Larock and his children, in memory of their aunt and great-aunt Katia Granoff, 1994

Claude Monet
Paris (France), 1840 – Giverny, Eure (France), 1926
Étretat, the Manneporte
1883
Oil on canvas
New York, The Metropolitan Museum of Art
Bequest of William Church Osborn, 1951

Claude Monet
Paris (France), 1840 – Giverny, Eure (France), 1926
Étretat, the Manneporte
1885
Oil on canvas
New York, The Metropolitan Museum of Art
Bequest of Lillie P. Bliss, 1931
Monet continued his quest for an original perspective on the cliffs. The views of the Manneporte that he took from the foot of the arch were probably the most perilous, as access was so limited, possible only by boat or by a steep descent down the cliff. In 1885, the artist was almost swept away by the rising tide, which swallowed up his equipment and his painting in progress. He nevertheless resumed his work and captured the majestic silhouette of the gateway, reminiscent of a triumphal arch. The sea appears paradoxically calm, whereas an earlier painting shows the waves breaking, exalting the power of nature and the dangerous nature of the situation.

Claude Monet
Paris (France), 1840 – Giverny, Eure (France), 1926
Étretat, the Needle and the Porte d’Aval
1885
Oil on canvas
Cambridge, The Fitzwilliam Museum
Accepted in lieu of inheritance tax and allocated to the Fitzwilliam Museum, 1998

Claude Monet
Paris (France), 1840 – Giverny, Eure (France), 1926
Étretat, the Needle and the Porte d’Aval
1885
Oil on canvas
Williamstown, Clark Art Institute
Acquisition of Sterling and Francine Clark, 1933

Claude Monet
Paris (France), 1840 – Giverny, Eure (France), 1926
Étretat, Fishing Boats Leaving the Harbour
1886
Oil on canvas
Dijon, musée des Beaux-Arts
Bequest of Dr Albert Robin, 1930

Claude Monet
Paris (France), 1840 – Giverny, Eure (France), 1926
Boats on the Beach at Étretat
1883
Oil on canvas
Toulouse, Fondation Bemberg

Claude Monet
Paris (France), 1840 – Giverny, Eure (France), 1926
Winter Landscape at Étretat
1885
Oil on canvas
Private collection
During his stay in Étretat in the autumn of 1885, Monet made excursions into the surrounding countryside, which he depicted on several occasions, temporarily turning away from the cliffs that had until then exclusively occupied his attention. This canvas was probably painted between 17 and 19 November, at a place called ‘La Passée’, to the south-east of the village. The artist omits any human presence and instead focuses his attention on the late autumn-coloured vegetation, captured in a free, sketch-like style.

Claude Monet
Paris (France), 1840 – Giverny, Eure (France), 1926
A Cottage in Normandy
1885
Oil on canvas
Zurich, Kunsthaus Zürich
Bequest of Johanna and Walter L. Wolff, 1984
This brightly coloured painting shows the ferme du Mont, known as the ‘artists' farm’, located on the Amont cliff and depicted on numerous occasions. Monet himself had already used this setting in the winter of 1868-1869, in his famous painting The Magpie (Paris, Musée d'Orsay), for a winter snow scene. Here, however, he focuses on the reflection of the building in the water of the pond. The site is a traditional clos-masure in the Pays de Caux: a farm surrounded by a hedge, comprising several buildings and an orchard.

After Alphonse Davanne
Paris (France), 1824 – Saint-Cloud, Hauts-de-Seine (France), 1912
Étretat, the Ferme du Mont, known as la Ferme des Artistes
Postcard
Frankfurt, Städel Museum