MONET’S SELF-PORTRAIT - NOT

Monet?, "Self-Portrait in his Atelier", 1884

In an earlier post [Is She or Isn't She] I discussed whether or not a drawing attributed to Monet was actually by him. I thought that the drawing was by the minor Impressionist artist Helleu. Recently in an article in The Art Newspaper, "Monet's favorite portrait of himself - but it is not by him," Martin Bailey posits that the portrait that for years was thought to be a self-portrait by Monet is not by the artist at all, but by an unknown artist. And who are the likely suspects? As with the alleged Monet drawing, the name of John Singer Sargent, among others, is being circulated.

But here is the twist that interests me. Until recently, the painting was in the hands of Paulette Howard-Johnson, the daughter of Paul HELLEU! She died last year at the age of 104, and was the last person to have known Monet. She remembers seeing the painting in his bedroom at Giverny the last time she and her father visited Monet in 1925. She believed that Monet told her the painting was by Sargent. Why then, had Wildenstein, the author of Monet's catalog raisonné, have it attributed to Monet. In the 1979 edition of the catalog, it was attributed to John Singer Sargent. In the 1994 edition, once the painting was owned by Wildenstein, it appeared as an authenticated Monet. Wildenstein may have had hopes of selling the painting, but was not able to obtain Monet prices for it.

When I inquired of the curator at the Clark about the provenance of the questionable Monet drawing, I was told, "Well, it's in Wildenstein."

I believe the drawing was by Helleu, but I was not sure if there was a connection between Monet and Helleu. Knowing now that he frequently visited Monet, makes it even easier to imagine how a Helleu drawing could get mixed up with Monet's estate. And perhaps, in this case, too, Wildenstein had a hand in the misattribution.

But that doesn't answer the question of who painted Monet's portrait. There are clues in the painting itself. The landscape in the background is of a painting that Monet did while visiting Bordighera in 1884.

Coastal_Road_at_Cap_Martin_near_Menton__1884

While in Bordighera he painted the portrait of an English artist. The identity of this artist was not known until recently. It is Arthur Alfred Burrington, who lived on the Riviera until his death in 1924.

Monet, Portrait of an English Painter [Burrington], Bordighera 1884

The portrait of Monet seems quite different from Burrington's other work. But I like to imagine these two artists working face face to face on their two portraits with Burrington perhaps being infused with some of the master's genius.

Burrington

UPDATE

I just finished reading “les Wildenstein",” by Magali Serre and she recounts the entire story behind the misattribution of the Monet portrait.

Evidently the painting was given to Paulette Howard-Johnson, the daughter of Paul HELLEU*, by Claude Monet’s son Michel. She was dining with him and told him that she remembered seeing the painting at Monet’s house in Giverny while Monet still resided there. She very much loved it and her memories of seeing it there. Michel, who cared more for cars than paintings insisted that she have it. He told her that he believed it was by Sargent. Neither of them really cared who did it, it was more the memory that was significant.

Later in life, when she was traveling between homes in France and Switzerland, she worried about it being stollen, and was urged by her friend, Patrick de Watrigant, to sell it. She sold the painting to Daniel Wildenstein as a Sargent for $300,000. Several months later, Wildenstein’s lawyer came back to her and accused her of defrauding Wildenstein, that the painting was not by Sargent, but by the school of a 19th century artist, in other words, no one of note. She was under threat. She decided that she would return $150,000 of the $300,000, if Wildenstein agreed to give the painting to the Marmottan Museum, which houses all the paintings that were left to Michel Monet.

Wildenstein autensibly gives it to the museum saying that it was once thought to be by Sargent, but the experts do not agree, so it must be attributed to 19the century school. The reason for this declaration became clear 10 years later when the painting appears as a Monet on the front page of the new Monet Catalog Raisonné, which is assembled by Wildenstein! By his own sleight of hand, he has vastly increased the value of the painting. It also says that it is part of a “Private Collection.” There is nothing about the Marmottan or the previous owner Paulette Howard-Johnson.

Paulette Howard-Johnson is furious and despite being well into her 80s, she decides to sue Wildenstein. Knowin gthat the case might outlast her, she puts Patrick de Watigant in charge of seeing the suite through to its end. She was suing for the restitution of the painting.

The painting was no where to be found! They searched the records of the Marmottan and discovered that the piece was entered into the collection as noted IN PENCIL, so that it could easily be erased, and followed by space, so that information could be added later, if needed. Eventually, it was discovered that the painting had been floating around in on of the Wildenstein Trusts that lay outside of France. The painting resurfaced again at the Marmottan, but this time with the label that it was “Attributed to Sargent,” which once again devalued the painting.

Paulette Howard-Johnson dies in 2009 at the age of 104, and it seems the Museum and Wildenstein, think they are well rid of her. In 2010 the Marmottan lists the painting as by Monet on their website.

The suite was not yet settled and, as promised, Patrick de Watrigant continues the fight. The painting hung on the walls of the Marmottan with a new title that attributed it to neither argent or Monet, but as being possibly by either.

In 2020 the mystery was finally solved by none other than the scholar Joachim Pissarro (a great grandson of the Impressionist artist), who attributed the painting to the Swiss artist Giron, based on a reference in Giron’s 1885 diary (published in the 1971 bulletin of the Musées de Genève), recording a visit to Giverny, where after lunch he spent an hour painting a portrait study, borrowing Monet’s own palette.

Charles Giron