Waterloo Bridge in London|Claude Monet |Search Collection

Updated 18 April 2025

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On Display

Permanent collection

Claude Monet

Paris, 1840 - Giverny, 1926

Waterloo Bridge in London

Date	1902
Materials and Techniques	oil on canvas
Size（cm）	65.7 x 100.5
Inscriptions	Signed and dated lower left: Claude Monet 1902
Credit Line	Matsukata Collection
Standard ref.	Wildenstein 1594; M780
Category	Paintings
Collection Number	P.1959-0155

Monet visited London several times after 1871. He created many fine works during his three trips in 1899, 1900 and 1901. Setting up his easel on the balcony of the Savoy Hotel that faces the Thames River, Monet painted works that combined the three motifs of the Waterloo Bridge, Parliament and Charing Cross Bridge. This painting is one of this series of works. Caught in a diagonal bird's eye view, the Waterloo Bridge is shown in a slightly reddish palette, with the figures and horses crossing it seeming to float against London's trademark fog. The light faintly shining from the surface of the water is diffused by the vague fog before the object of the bridge which definitively recreates a three dimensional space. The hard compositional element of the bridge is almost completely obscured, and its shape is only slightly visible in the pigments that reflect light. The NMWA collections also contain a painting by Monet of Charing Cross Bridge in London. (Source: Masterpieces of the National Museum of Western Art, Tokyo, 2009, cat. no.77)

Provenance

Purchased possibly from the artist by Kojiro Matsukata, Kobe, ca. December 1921 [see letter from Léonce Bénédite to (Claude Monet), dated 11 December 1921, in the Bibliothèque centrale des musées nationaux, Paris (copy in NMWA curatorial file)]; sequestered by French government, 1944; vested in French government under San Francisco Peace Treaty, 1952; transferred from French to Japanese government, 23 January 1959; entered into NMWA, April 1959.

Exhibition History

1924: Exposition Claude Monet, organisée au bénéfice des Victimes de la Catastrophe du Japon, Galeries Georges Petit, Paris, 4 January 1924 - 18 January 1924, cat. no. 18
1952: Monet, Dienst voor Schone Kunsten, Den Haag, 0 1952 - 0 1952, cat. no. 78
1978: European Landscape Painting, Yamanashi Prefectural Museum of Art, Kofu, 3 November 1978 - 15 January 1979, cat. no. 74
1982: Monet, National Museum of Western Art, Tokyo, 9 October 1982 - 28 November 1982, cat. no. 46
1996: The Crossing Visions: European and Modern Japanese Art from the Collections of The National Museum of Western Art & The National Museum of Modern Art, Tokyo, National Museum of Modern Art, Tokyo, 20 July 1996 - 8 September 1996, cat. no. 8
2007: Monet: l'art de Monet et sa postérité, The National Art Center, Tokyo, 7 April 2007 - 2 July 2007, cat. no. 82, col. repr.
2010: Impressionism and Modern Art, Suntory Museum in Tempozan, 10 July 2010 - 20 September 2010, cat. no. 18, col. repr.
2013: Monet, An Eye for Landscapes: Innovation in 19th Century French Landscape Paintings, Pola Museum of Art, 13 July 2013 - 24 November 2013, The National Museum of Western Art, Tokyo, 7 December 2013-9 March 2014, cat. no. 88, col. repr.
2015: NO MUSEUM, NO LIFE?: Art-Museum Encyclopedia to Come: From the Collections of the National Museums of Art, The National Museum of Modern Art, Tokyo, 16 June 2015 - 13 September 2015, cat. no. L-3
2019: The Matsukata Collection: A One-Hundred-Year Odyssey: Upon the 60th Anniversary of the NMWA, The National Museum of Western Art, Tokyo, 11 June 2019 - 23 September 2019, cat. no. 112, col. repr.
2022: In Dialogue with Nature - from Friedrich, Monet and Van Gogh to Richter, The National Museum of Western Art, Tokyo, 4 June 2022 - 11 September 2022, cat. no. 11
2024: Does the Future Sleep Here?: Revisiting the Museum's Response to Contemporary Art after 65 Years, National Museum of Western Art, Tokyo, 12 March 2024 - 12 May 2024

Bibliography

1955: La Collection Matsukata, Tokyo, Asahi- Shimbun, 1955 (Japanese), no. 39, repr.
1959: Mizue: a monthly review of the fine arts. no. 651, Special Number, July 1959 (in Japanese), repr.
1961: Catalogue du Musée National d'Art Occidental, Tokyo. Tokyo, The National Museum of Western Art, 1961 (Préface and Catalogue Général in Japanese and French), P-213.
1968: Annual bulletin of the National Museum of Western Art. No. 2, 1968, p. 18, no. 28, repr.
1971: Les cent chefs-d'œuvre du Musée National d'Art Occidental. Tokyo, The National Museum of Western Art, 1971 (Japanese), no. 55, repr.
1975: Les cent chefs-d'œuvre du Musée National d'Art Occidental. Tokyo, The National Museum of Western Art, 1975 (Japanese), no. 39, repr.
1978: Masterpieces of the National Museum of Western Art, Tokyo. Tokyo, The National Museum of Western Art, 1978 (Japanese, preface in Japanese and English), no. 46, repr.
1979: The National Museum of Western Art, Tokyo: Catalogue of Paintings. Tokyo, The National Museum of Western Art, 1979, no. 195, repr.
1985: Wildenstein, Daniel. Claude Monet, biographie et catalogue raisonné. tome 4, Lausanne/ Paris, 1985, pp. 182-183; tome 5, 1991, pp. 52, 215 (lettre no. 3061).
1990: The Old Matsukata Collection. Kobe City Museum, ed. Kobe, "Matsukata Korekushon Ten" Jikkoiinkai, 1990, cat. no. 1071.
1996: Wildenstein, Daniel. Monet: Catalogue raisonné. vol. 3, Cologne, Taschen, 1996, p. 699, cat. no. 1594, repr. color.
2006: Masterpieces of The National Museum of Western Art, Tokyo. Tokyo, The National Museum of Western Art; Tokyo, The Western Art Foundation, 2006 (Japanese, preface in Japanese and English), no. 77, col. repr.
2007: Monet: l'art de Monet et sa postérité. Lemoine, Serge; Takashina, Shuji; Mabuchi, Akiko; Yusuke, Minami; The National Art Center; Département des affaires culturelles du Yomiuri Shimbun, eds. Tokyo, Le Yomiuri Shimbun, 2007., cat. no. 74, col. repr.
2009: Masterpieces of The National Museum of Western Art, Tokyo. Tokyo, The National Museum of Western Art; Tokyo, The Western Art Foundation, 2009, no. 77, col. repr.
2010: Impressionism and Modern Art(exh. cat.). Osaka, Suntory Museum, Osaka, c2010, cat. no. 18, col. repr.
2013: MONET, An Eye For Landscapes: Innovation in 19th Century French Landscape Paintings(exh. cat.). Tokyo, TBS, c2013, cat. no. 88, col. repr.
2018: The Matsukata Collection: Complete Catalogue of the European Art. Kawaguchi, Masako; Jingaoka, Megumi, eds. vol. 1: Paintings, Tokyo, The National Museum of Western Art, Tokyo, 2018, cat. no. 780, col. repr.
2019: The Matsukata Collection: A One-Hundred-Year Odyssey (exh. cat.). Jingaoka, Megumi, ed. Tokyo, The National Museum of the Western Art, Tokyo; Yomiuri Shimbun; NHK; NHK Promotions, 2019, pp. 198, 204-205, 368, cat. no. 112, col. repr.
2022: In Dialogue with Nature: from Friedrich, Monet and Van Gogh to Richter (exh. cat.). Jingaoka, Megumi; Shinfuji, Atsushi; Yomiuri Shimbun, Museum Exhibition Department, eds. Tokyo, The National Museum of Western Art, Tokyo; Yomiuri Shimbun; NHK; NHK Promotions, 2022, pp. 72, 254, cat. no. 11, col. repr.

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