Arrival of the Normandy Train, Gare Saint-Lazare

Inscribed, lower left: Claude Monet 77
Mr. and Mrs. Martin A. Ryerson Collection, 1933.1158

The Gare Saint-Lazare was the largest and busiest train station in Paris. Early in 1877, with help from his friend Gustave Caillebotte, Claude Monet rented an apartment in the nearby rue Moncey and began the first of 12 canvases showing this icon of modernity. He displayed seven of them, including this one, at the third Impressionist exhibition, in April of that year. Legend has it that he arranged to have the standing locomotives stoked with extra coal so that he could observe and paint the effects of belching steam—dull gray when trapped inside the station, white and cloudlike when seen against the sky. Read more...