Cliffs at Villerville
Charles-François Daubigny (1817 - 1878), 1864-1872
oil on canvas, 100 cm x 200 cm
Credits: The Mesdag Collection, The Hague
Cliffs at Villerville-sur-Mer is one of no less than 25 paintings and drawings by Daubigny in The Mesdag Collection. Mesdag greatly admired this artist and organized an exhibition of his work in The Hague in 1890.
Daubigny used a range of grey tones to paint the threatening cloudy sky above the coastal town of Villerville-sur-Mer in Normandy. Only the crests of the waves and the white cap of the woman light up in the dark surroundings.
This picture looked somewhat different when Daubigny first painted it in 1864. He later worked on it again two more times before he was satisfied. He made the final adjustments in 1872, changing the foreground from light to dark and making the sky more dramatic.
- Object number
- hwm0096
- Dimensions
- 100 cm x 200 cm, 133 cm x 231 cm, 15 cm
- Provenance
- Sold by Mme Daubigny to Boussod, Valadon & Cie, Paris, through Henri Garnier for FRF 21000; sold by Boussod, Valadon & Cie, The Hague (no. 17641, Villerville sur mer) to Hendrik Willem Mesdag, The Hague for NLG 14400, 12 December 1885; Collection Museum Mesdag donated by Hendrik Willem Mesdag and Sientje Mesdag-van Houten to the State of the Netherlands, 14 May 1903; Rijksmuseum H.W. Mesdag, The Hague, from 1 August 1903; in trust of the Mauritshuis, The Hague, between 1934 and 1990; in trust of the Rijksmuseum Vincent van Gogh, Amsterdam, from 1 April 1990; Museum Mesdag, in trust of the Van Gogh Museum Foundation, Amsterdam, from 1 July 1994, under the name of De Mesdag Collectie from 2011.
- artist
- Charles-François Daubigny
- Credits
- The Mesdag Collection, The Hague
Amsterdam, Van Gogh Museum, Daubigny, Monet, Van Gogh: impressies van het landschap, 21 October 2016-29 January 2017
Edinburgh, National Galleries of Scotland, Inspiring Impressionism: Daubigny, Monet, Van Gogh, 25 June-2 October 2016
Cincinnati, Taft Museum of Art, Daubigny, Monet, Van Gogh: Impressions of Landscape, 19 February-29 May 2016
Mathieu, Marianne, Durand-Ruel Snollaerts, Claire, Labarrère, André Z., Bagnasco, Carlo, Herlaut, Aldo, Lobstein, Dominique, Monet en pleine lumière = Monet in full light, Vanves, 2023, pp. 29-31
Daneo, Angelica, Heinrich, Christoph, Philipp, Michael, Westheider, Ortrud, Mathieu, Marianne, Penn, Alexander, Rubin, James H., Shackelford, George T.M., Thomson, Richard, Tucker, Paul Hayes, Zamani, Daniel, Claude Monet : the truth of nature, Potsdam, 2019, p. 25
Schackleford, G.T.M., Monet : the early years, Fort Worth, 2016, p. 53-54
House, John, Van Gogh and impressionism, Amsterdam, 2012, p. 11, 14
House, John, Van Gogh en het impressionisme, Amsterdam, 2012, p. 13-14
Dijk, Maite van, Suijver, Renske, Fitski, M., Smits, C., De Mesdag Collectie, Amsterdam, 2011, p. 39, 48-49
Dijk, Maite van, Suijver, Renske, Fitski, M., Smits, C., The Mesdag Collection, Amsterdam, 2011, p. 34-35, 39, 48-49
Tonkovich, J., Gere, Charlotte, Hoenigswald, A., House, John, Bell, Esther, Studying nature : oil sketches from the Thaw collection, New York, 2011
Callen, Anthea, Gallimmore, K., Havell, J., The art of impressionism : painting technique and the making of modernity, London, 2000, p. 108-109
Vergeest, Aukje, The French collection : nineteenth-century French paintings in Dutch public collections, Amsterdam, 2000, p. 115
Bodt, Saskia de, Leeman, Fred, Leeuw, Ronald de, Pennock, Hanna, Museum Mesdag : catalogue of paintings and drawings, Zwolle, 1996, p. 164-165, 205
Pennock, Hanna, Museum Mesdag : een selectie uit de verzameling, p. 8