À propos de l’œuvre
Pont de Charing, par Claude Monet
Claude Monet · 1903 · Saint Louis Art Museum · W1548
Charing Cross Bridge, St. Louis W1548hand painted reproduction
A train crosses Charing Cross Bridge in a purple and golden mist. The fumes connect the bridge to the sky, while the Thames opens in the foreground with long touches of pink, yellow and green around a few dark sailboats.
Look at the work
The train, the smoke and the reflections give continuous movement to the Thames
The bridge forms a blue-purple band in the middle of the canvas. A white plume rises to the left of the train and immediately dissolves into the sky. Behind, the industrial silhouettes are only vertical gray-blue spots, sufficient to give the depth of London.
The foreground is much warmer. Salmon roses and yellows fragment around three dark green sailboats. The reflections do not mechanically reproduce the shapes of the bridge: they stretch its light in an autonomous and mobile surface.
Charing Cross Bridge is not just a bridge in fog: the passage of the train transforms the air, and this smoke becomes the visible connection between the city, the sky and the river.
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.
A train indicated by a few keys
The locomotive and wagons remain tiny, but the white plume immediately catches the eye. Their scale measures the bridge without interrupting the atmosphere.
A cold bridge line between two bright areas
The blue-purple apron separates the purple sky from the pink water. This temperature difference is enough to stabilize the composition without black outline.
Dark sailboats in warm water
The small green and brown sails anchor the foreground. Around them, the pink and yellow touches must remain fragmented to preserve the sparkle of the river.
Details and visual documents
Observe the material and the exact version
The additional images show the difficult-to-read passages in the full view and, where it exists, the actual appearance of the work at the museum.
The full view measures 4,776 × 3,513 px; native details measure 2,700 × 1,450 px and 3,000 × 1,500 px. No files have been enlarged; the three images are real WebPs from the public reproduction of the museum.
Documented benchmarks
Three pieces of information specific to this work
These facts concern this precise version and are verified from the notice of the institution which keeps it.
St. Louis 22:1915, Wildenstein 1548
The Saint Louis Art Museum dates this oil on canvas to 1903 and indicates 73 × 104.1 cm. The work is numbered 22:1915 and corresponds to number 1548 of the catalog raisonné.
Purchase from Durand-Ruel in 1915
The museum acquired the painting directly from the merchant Durand-Ruel in 1915. It thus entered an American public collection very early, twelve years after its dating.
The industrial city transformed by the atmosphere
The railway bridge, chimneys and modern traffic remain present, but Monet unites them by the mist. The industrial subject becomes a study of light rather than an architectural description.
Your reproduction
What the painter must preserve
Fidelity here depends on precise relationships between light, touch, depth and color temperature.
- The exact version Saint-Louis 22:1915, W1548
- The original format of 73 × 104.1 cm
- The train perceptible without being overdefined
- The golden pink reflections preserved around the sailboats
Work sheet
| Title | Charing Cross Bridge, St. Louis W1548 |
|---|---|
| Artist | Claude Monet (1840 -1926) |
| Date | 1903 |
| Original technique | Oil on canvas |
| Dimensions | 73 × 104.1 cm |
| Orientation | Horizontal |
| Conservation | Saint Louis Art Museum, Saint-Louis, United States |
| Inventory | 22:1915 · Wildenstein 1548 |
| Your reproduction | Handmade oil painting on canvas |
Presentation in your interior
A palette designed with the room
Misty mauve, gray blue, salmon pink and golden yellow give this reproduction a soft and sophisticated light. Its horizontal format is suitable for a living room, office or bedroom on an ivory, greige or smoky blue wall.
