À propos de l’œuvre
Les Glaçons, par Claude Monet
Claude Monet · debacle of the Seine · 1880 · W567
The W567 Ice Cubeshand painted reproduction
The Seine is covered with patches of ice which drift between two banks almost melted in the mist. Thin trees, pink, green and blue, punctuate the horizon; on the water, the ice cubes are indicated by light impasto and dark lines which make their movement felt. Painted in Vétheuil in 1880, this oil on panoramic canvas measuring 60.5 × 99.5 cm is kept at the Musée d'Orsay under the number RF 1965 10 and corresponds to Wildenstein 567.
Look at the work
The horizon dissolves to give way to the slow movement of the ice sheets
The almost one meter wide format stretches the river. The two banks lower towards the center and provide a narrow opening in the distance, but the perspective remains deliberately little contrasted: sky, mist, trees and water share similar values.
The ice cubes in the foreground do not form a continuous surface. Monet alternates touches of white, pink, blue-gray and pale green with intervals of dark water. This irregular rhythm moves the ice towards the viewer and gives the river an almost tangible material.
In this debacle, the cold is not translated by a uniform white: it appears in the extinct roses, water greens and blues that circulate between the sky, trees and floating plates.
Composition, touch and light
What Monet builds behind the impression of snapshot
Three precise elements allow us to understand this composition and the essential difficulties of faithful reproduction.
The Seine after the exceptional frost of 1879 -1880
The harsh winter immobilized the river before the ice broke in early January. Monet followed this phenomenon around Vétheuil and made several distinct compositions.
A preparatory study that has become an independent work
W567 is generally described as a study for another larger version, W568. Its direct key and its abbreviated forms nevertheless record with great precision the changing state of the river.
A human absence which amplifies the phenomenon
No boat or silhouette provides narrative scale. The gaze focuses on the width of the Seine, the current and the trees drowned in the atmosphere.
Reference image
Read this specific version
The single image is a real photograph of the RF 1965 10 version, cropped around the canvas. The source file of 3,636 × 2,146 px is limited to 3,000 × 1,771 px then encoded as a real WebP.
Preserve the horizon very low and very soft
Trees should remain thin and partially absorbed by mist. A continuous dark outline would abruptly separate the sky from the water and destroy the atmospheric unit.
Store roses and greens in ice
These tones warm and differentiate the plates. Reducing them to white and gray would cause the colored vibration specific to W567 to lose.
Keep the impasto irregular in the foreground
Shapes should vary in width, orientation and spacing. Regular repetition would give the impression of a decorative pattern rather than a moving mirror.
Documented benchmarks
Three pieces of information specific to this work
The Musée d'Orsay documents Les Glaçons, also entitled Débâcle sur la Seine, oil on canvas from 1880, 60.5 × 99.5 cm, inventory RF 1965 10 and catalog Wildenstein 567.
A work also called Debacle on the Seine
The two titles designate the same version preserved in Orsay. The subject belongs to the group of paintings inspired by the rupture of the frozen river at Vétheuil.
From Charles Ephrussi to the Gourgaud donation
The painting belonged to Charles Ephrussi in 1889, then passed into the Reinach and Gourgaud collections. Baroness Eva Gebhard-Gourgaud gave it to the State in 1965.
From the Louvre to the Musée d'Orsay
Attributed to the Louvre in 1965 and exhibited at the Jeu de Paume, the work was assigned to the Musée d'Orsay in 1986. It is not currently presented in theaters.
Your reproduction
What the painter must preserve
Fidelity here depends on precise relationships between light, touch, depth and color temperature.
- The Wildenstein 567 version
- The panoramic format of almost a meter
- Pink, blue and green ice sheets
- Thin trees almost dissolved in mist
Work sheet
| Title | The W567 Ice Cubes |
|---|---|
| Artist | Claude Monet (1840 -1926) |
| Date | 1880 |
| Original technique | Oil on canvas |
| Dimensions | 60.5 × 99.5 cm |
| Orientation | Panoramic horizontal |
| Conservation | Musée d'Orsay, Paris, France |
| Inventory | RF 1965 10 · Wildenstein 567 |
| Your reproduction | Handmade oil painting on canvas |
Presentation in your interior
A palette designed with the room
This calm panoramic landscape is suitable above a sofa, sideboard or bed. An old pink, sea green or pearl gray wall and a light wood or aged silver frame extend its winter range without darkening it.
