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Image of Claude Monet (French, 1840-1926)<br><i>The Manneport (Étretat), </i>1883 <br>25 ¾” x 32” <br>Oil on Canvas <br>The Metropolitan Museum of Art, Bequest of <br>William Church Osborn, 1951 (51.30.5). <br>Photograph © 1989 The Metropolitan Museum of <br>Art
Claude Monet (French, 1840-1926)
The Manneport (Étretat), 1883
25 ¾” x 32”
Oil on Canvas
The Metropolitan Museum of Art, Bequest of
William Church Osborn, 1951 (51.30.5).
Photograph © 1989 The Metropolitan Museum of
Art
The Manneporte (Étretat), 1883
Oil on canvas
The Metropolitan Museum of Art, New York, Bequest of
William Church Osborn, 1951, 51.30.5


The Manneporte, or Great Portal, is the largest of Étretat’s three limestone arches. Depicted in thousands of paintings and photographs, it was usually viewed from a distance. Monet chose a more difficult and dangerous perspective: from a rented boat looking directly up at the arch. Two tiny figures, mere flicks of Monet’s brush, stand on a rock above the crashing waves as witnesses to the sublime spectacle.

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