NML home > Walker Art Gallery > Collections > 19c > 'Break-up of the ice on the Seine'

Our venues

World Museum Liverpool
Walker Art Gallery
Merseyside Maritime Museum
International Slavery Museum
National Conservation Centre
Lady Lever Art Gallery
Sudley House
Museum of Liverpool

19 century collection

Introduction
'The Death of Nelson'
'Linlithgow Palace'
'The Ruins of Holyrood Chapel'
'The Black Boy'
'Millie Smith'
'Isabella'
'Self-Portrait'
Study of Emma and Catherine for 'Pretty Baa Lambs'
'Napoleon crossing the Alps'
'Waiting'
'The Tinted Venus'
'The Stonebreaker'
'John and Georgina Naylor'
A study of 'Arthur Madox Brown, age nine months'
'The Hunted Slaves'
'Faithful unto death'
'The Murder'
'Elaine'
'Dante's Dream'
'Bust of Henry Wordsworth Longfellow'
'Leonora di Mantua'
'Portrait of Mrs Catherine Smith Gill'
'Elijah in the Wilderness'
'Athlete struggling with a python'
'And when did you last see your father?'
'One of the Family'
'A Street in Brittany'
'Friday'
'Dante and Beatrice'
'The Mower'
'Fantine'
'Samson'
'A summer night'
'The Promise'
'The funeral of Shelley'
'Woman ironing'
'Break-up of the ice on the Seine'
'Perseus and Andromeda'
'The punishment of lust'
'The sense of sight'
'Ophelia'

'Break-up of the ice on the Seine', Claude Monet

This painting is a landscape scene of water, trees, mountains and sky which divide the painting in sections. The canvas is split horizontally down the centre with a division between water and land. However, the whole canvas is flat and tonal and has Monet's textural brushwork.

Oil on canvas, 65 x 100cm

Accession Number WAG6133

This shows a wintry early morning view towards two of the narrow islands of trees at Bennecourt near Giverny on the River Seine.

By 1890 Monet complemented his on-the-spot Impressionist practice with extensive re-working in the studio. This resulted in many pictures with close-toned atmospheric harmonies. This is most famously evident in his Rouen Cathedral and haystack series, but can also be seen in this work.