The Beach at Sainte-Adresse

In the summer of 1867 Claude Monet stayed with his aunt in Sainte-Adresse, an affluent suburb of the port city of Le Havre in Normandy, where the artist grew up. Monet began the painting outdoors on an overcast day but likely revised the composition in his studio in view of other related canvases, especially the Metropolitan Museum of Art’s Regatta at Sainte-Adresse (51.30.4). Technical analysis revealed that what started as a scene of yachts and tourists at the beach ultimately became a view of sailboats and local fishermen. Monet first exhibited this painting at the Impressionist exhibition of 1876, the second of eight independent exhibitions he mounted with a group of like-minded avant-garde artists who sought to present their work outside of France’s traditional, state-sponsored Salon system.