Lilla Cabot Perry: Reminiscences of Monet, Pt. 7

"Les Glaçons" by Claude Monet

"Fauré, the singer, who was by way of being a collector, bought a landscape from Claude Monet about this time for, I believe, the sum of one hundred francs, but brought it back a few days later and asked for his money back. He said he liked the picture himself, but his friends laughed at him so much that he could not keep it on his walls. Monet said he then and there made up his mind never to sell that picture, and he never did, though often offered large sums for it by rich Americans and others. He told me he had 'la mort dans l'ame' [death of the soul] when that picture was brought back and that he would sell the last shirt off his back before he would sell it! 

When we left Giverny in 1909, it was still hanging on the walls of this studio, a charming view of the Church at Vetheuil, seen across the Seine on a misty winter's day with cakes of snowy ice floating in the water. It is called 'Les Glaçons,' and is a most exquisite and exact portrayal of nature. One can only wonder why Monsieur Fauré's friends laughed at it, and laugh at them in return.

Monet was most appreciative of the work of his contemporaries, several of whom had been less successful than he in obtaining recognition during their lifetime. In his bedroom, a large room over the studio, he had quite a gallery of works of such Impressionists as Renoir, Camille Pissarro, a most expressive picture of three peasant women done during his pointilliste period, a charming hillside with little houses on it by Cezanne, about whom Monet had many interesting things to say. 

There was also a delightful picture by Berthe Morisot, the one woman of his set I have heard him praise. And richly she deserved it! I met her only once, at Miss Cassatt's. She was a most beautiful white-haired old lady. She died shortly afterward and Monet and Pissarro worked like beavers hanging her posthumous exhibition at Durand-Ruel's. It was a wonderful exhibition, and I think that the picture Monet owned was bought at this show. Monet was a most devoted friend to dear old Pissarro, whom no one could help loving, and after his death he acquired another of his pictures which was kept in the studio, and shown and praised to all visitors."

To be continued

(From "Reminiscences of Monet from 1889-1909" by Lilla Cabot Perry from The American Magazine of Art, March 1927, Vol. 18, no. 3, pp. 119-125.)