CLAUDE MONET and GEORGE W. THORNLEY
Brouillard à Vetheuil.

Lithograph printed in grayish blue on creamChine appliqué, circa 1992. 182x265 mm; 7 1/4x10 1/2 inches, full margins. Edition of 25. Signed by both Monet and Thornley in pencil, lower margin. Printed by Belfond, Paris, with the blind stamp lower left (see Lugt supplement 225d, lower right). Published by Goupil, Paris. From L'Album de 20 lithographies d'apres les tableaux de Claude Monet.

A very good, well-inked impression of this scarce lithograph, with all the subtle tonal variations distinct.

At the end of the 19th century, Monet (1840-1926), Edgar Degas (1834-1917) and Camille Pissarro (1830-1903) rediscovered lithography as a medium both to recreate their artistic conceptions on paper and to simultaneously achieve widespread distribution for their work. These artists, who had invented new ways of transmitting impressions of light and color, engaged George William Thornley (1857-1935), an accomplished English lithographer and admirer of the Impressionists, to translate their designs into lithographs. The prints that emerged from these collaborative efforts are the only lithographs in color, save one by Pissarro, by these great Impressionist artists.

Until he met Thornley, Monet had evidenced no interest in making prints. Unlike Degas and Pissarro, who etched on copper and drew on stone or transfer paper, or Cézanne, Sisley and Renoir, who collaborated with Auguste Clot, the talented Parisian master printer, to create color lithographs, Monet either found printmaking too daunting or did not seek the public acclaim for his work that printmaking could provide. However, he was able to find a hospitable partner in Thornley. The resulting collaborative lithographs of landscapes and seascapes, signed by Monet in pencil, are informed with the elusive and shimmering light of his iconic Impressionist oil paintings.

Monet's same-titled oil of this subject, from 1879, is now in the Musée Marmottan Monet, Paris.