MONET CLAUDE: (1840-1926) 'I am very worried about the gardens......so please remember to keep an eye on the ice in ...

MONET CLAUDE: (1840-1926) 'I am very worried about the gardens......so please remember to keep an eye on the ice in the pool. It would be very unfortunate if everything planted there were to perish'

MONET CLAUDE: (1840-1926) French Impressionist painter. A very fine A.L.S., Claude Monet, four pages, 8vo, Christiania (i.e. Oslo, Norway), although on the printed stationery of Giverny par Vernon, Eure, 13th February 1895, to his wife ('Ma bonne cherie'), in French. In his characteristic dark purple ink Monet writes a social letter to his second wife, Alice Hoschede, stating that he has at last received two letters from her, discussing the weather that they are both experiencing, and making a reference to the water lillies that he would so famously paint in the upcoming years, 'Je vois que vous avez bien froid aussi mais ce n´est rien à côté d´ici ce que vous avez la nuit nous l´avons le jour. Je comprends la joie des patineurs , mais je tremble bien pour les jardins, pour les vignons, pensé-t-on bien à surveiller la glace dans le bassin. Ce serait bien malheureux si tout ce qu´il y a de planté allait périr' (Translation: 'I can see that you are very cold too, but that's nothing compared with here, what you have at night we have during the day. I understand the joy of the skaters, but I am very worried about the gardens and the gables, so please remember to keep an eye on the ice in the pool. It would be very unfortunate if everything planted there were to perish'), further expressing his regret at being away from his wife and lamenting the fact that he has not been able to paint, 'jusqu´à présent j´avais pensé pouvoir travailler hier encore nous avons voyagé toute la journée pour cela et vu des choses de toute beauté, mais je vois la chose trop difficile' (Translation: 'Up until now I had thought I would be able to work, and only yesterday we travelled all day to do so and saw some beautiful things, but I find it too difficult') and reflecting 'Tout cela me rend d´humeur assez sombre et regrette bien de ne pas être à Giverny où j´aurais pu profiter des belles choses qu´il y a en ce moment........ il se pourrait que subitement je reprenne le chemin de la France n´ayant aucun gout pout voir du pays que je ne sais peindre. Du reste je suis trop vieux pour m´embarquer désormais pour des pays étrangers. En France........l´on peut se caser et vivre à sa......et ou l´on peut profiter de son temps' (Translation: 'All this has put me in a rather gloomy mood and I really regret not being in Giverny where I could have taken advantage of the beautiful things there at the moment........ I might suddenly take the road back to France as I have no taste for seeing the country that I cannot paint. Besides, I'm too old to set sail for foreign countries any more. In France........you can settle down and live to your heart's content......and make the most of your time'). In concluding Monet writes regarding domestic matters, asks his wife to write as often as she can, and also makes a reference to his friend, the art critic Gustave Geffroy, before closing in affectionate terms with the sentences 'Je t´envoie tout mon coeur et mes tendresses. Je voudrais bien être au milieu de vous' (Translation: 'I send you all my heartfelt love. I would love to be among you'). A letter of fine content. About EX

Alice Hoschede Monet (1844-1911) French artists' model, wife of the art collector Ernest Hoschede and later of the Impressionist painter Claude Monet (from 1892).

Claude Monet’s trip to Norway in 1895 was perhaps the most physically taxing of all his many painting campaigns. Touring the country with his stepson Jacques Hoschedé, who lived in Christiania, he was awestruck but initially frustrated in his search for good subjects amid the snowm as the present letter suggests. Despite this discontent, Monet painted twenty-nine Norwegian scenes during his two-month stay.