?Final Price Realized includes Buyer’s Premium added to Hammer Price
Estimate: $ 15,000 - $ 20,000
CLAUDE MONET and GEORGE W. THORNLEY La Gare Saint-Lazare.
Lithograph printed in greenish gray on off-white Chine appliqué on cream wove paper, circa 1892. 205x260 mm; 8 1/8x10 1/4 inches, full margins. Edition of 25. Signed by both Monet and Thornley in pencil, lower margin. Printed by Belfond, Paris, with the blind stamp (Lugt 225d, lower left). Published by Goupil, Paris. From L'Album de 20 lithographies d'après les tableaux de Claude Monet. A superb, richly-inked impression of this scarce print, with strong contrasts.
In 1877, Monet rented a small flat and studio near the Gare Saint Lazare in Paris. In the third Impressionist exhibition, which opened in April the same year, he exhibited seven views of the railway station. Monet's treatment of this Industrial Era subject was rather revolutionary for its day and these paintings, four of which survive today, are among the pantheon of Impressionist art.
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, simultaneously, achieve widespread distribution of, and acclamation 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.
