Skip Navigation

Rising Tide at Pourville (Marée montante à Pourville)

Claude Monet

European Art

Inspired in part by Gustave Courbet’s marines of the 1860s, Claude Monet here conveys the choppy, windswept sea off the Normandy coast in forceful brushstrokes. He emphasizes the dramatic setting of the abandoned customhouse on the edge of the cliff (now gone, as a result of erosion) by cropping the right edge of the canvas and adopting a striking, elevated vantage point.

Monet made a number of paintings along this coast, working on several of them every day (he had to hire a porter to help him carry them all). Each could take as many as twenty sessions to finish. They were marketable back in Paris. In 1882, the year he made this painting, his dealer paid him a total of 31,000 francs (roughly equivalent to $175,000 today).
MEDIUM Oil on canvas
  • Place Made: France
  • DATES 1882
    DIMENSIONS 26 x 32 in. (66 x 81.3cm) Frame: 35 x 41 1/4 x 4 in. (88.9 x 104.8 x 10.2 cm)  (show scale)
    SIGNATURE Signed and dated lower right: "82 Claude Monet"
    COLLECTIONS European Art
    ACCESSION NUMBER 41.1260
    CREDIT LINE Gift of Mrs. Horace O. Havemeyer
    PROVENANCE July 28, 1883, purchased from the artist by Durand-Ruel, Paris, France; between 1883 and 1894, provenance not yet documented; January 16, 1894, purchased at Durand-Ruel by Henry Osborne Havemeyer and Louisine Waldron Elder Havemeyer of New York, NY; 1929, inherited from Louisine Havemeyer by Horace Havemeyer and Doris A. Dick Havemeyer (Mrs. Horace Havemeyer); January 8, 1942, gift of Doris Havemeyer to the Brooklyn Museum.
    Provenance FAQ
    MUSEUM LOCATION This item is not on view
    CAPTION Claude Monet (French, 1840–1926). Rising Tide at Pourville (Marée montante à Pourville), 1882. Oil on canvas, 26 x 32 in. (66 x 81.3cm). Brooklyn Museum, Gift of Mrs. Horace O. Havemeyer, 41.1260 (Photo: Brooklyn Museum, 41.1260_PS11.jpg)
    IMAGE overall, 41.1260_PS11.jpg. Brooklyn Museum photograph, 2022
    "CUR" at the beginning of an image file name means that the image was created by a curatorial staff member. These study images may be digital point-and-shoot photographs, when we don\'t yet have high-quality studio photography, or they may be scans of older negatives, slides, or photographic prints, providing historical documentation of the object.
    RIGHTS STATEMENT No known copyright restrictions
    This work may be in the public domain in the United States. Works created by United States and non-United States nationals published prior to 1923 are in the public domain, subject to the terms of any applicable treaty or agreement. You may download and use Brooklyn Museum images of this work. Please include caption information from this page and credit the Brooklyn Museum. If you need a high resolution file, please fill out our online application form (charges apply). The Museum does not warrant that the use of this work will not infringe on the rights of third parties, such as artists or artists' heirs holding the rights to the work. It is your responsibility to determine and satisfy copyright or other use restrictions before copying, transmitting, or making other use of protected items beyond that allowed by "fair use," as such term is understood under the United States Copyright Act. The Brooklyn Museum makes no representations or warranties with respect to the application or terms of any international agreement governing copyright protection in the United States for works created by foreign nationals. For further information about copyright, we recommend resources at the United States Library of Congress, Cornell University, Copyright and Cultural Institutions: Guidelines for U.S. Libraries, Archives, and Museums, and Copyright Watch. For more information about the Museum's rights project, including how rights types are assigned, please see our blog posts on copyright. If you have any information regarding this work and rights to it, please contact copyright@brooklynmuseum.org.
    RECORD COMPLETENESS
    Not every record you will find here is complete. More information is available for some works than for others, and some entries have been updated more recently. Records are frequently reviewed and revised, and we welcome any additional information you might have.