Poppies near Vétheuil, ca. 1880

Lack of funds had Claude Monet, his wife Camille and their two sons leave Paris in 1878 to set up a joint household with the Hoschedé family at Vétheuil, a rural village on a big loop in the Seine, situated around 40 miles northwest of Paris. Camille, sadly, only spent a year in these picturesque surroundings before her early death. In this painting, we've caught up with Monet at a time when he was a broke, depressed, single father who'd become isolated from his Impressionist pals--by both circumstances and choice.

Incredibly, none of this diminished Monet's capacity to see and record beauty. Here he's captured children gathering poppies in a field. The tall structure in the background is Notre Dame de Vétheuil, construction of which was begun by Henry II of England (r. 1154–1189). I'm not sure where Monet was sitting, though due east of this hilly town there are some nice, flattish fields with a tributary running through them. It's a lovely scene regardless of where his easel was set, and no one has ever better rendered a sea of red poppies.

About the Theft:

At around 4:30 p.m. on Sunday, February 10, 2008, three thieves wearing dark clothing and ski masks entered the E. G. Bührle Collection on the shores of Lake Zurich in Switzerland shortly before the facility was due to close for the day at 5:00 p.m. While one thief ordered visitors and staff, at gunpoint, to lay on the floor, the other two quickly stripped four side-by-side Impressionist and Post-Impressionist paintings from a wall in the "Music Room." Law enforcement officials speculate that these canvases were not stolen "to order," due to the fact that they were hanging together when taken, and also because more valuable works are on display elsewhere in the Collection. $91K (US) in reward money leading to the return of these paintings is reported to be available.

Update: (February 21, 2008) INTERPOL officially announced today that two of the stolen paintings were recovered on February 18. Claude Monet's Poppies near Vétheuil (ca. 1880) and Vincent van Gogh's Blossoming Chestnut Branches (1890) were discovered in the back seat of a white Opel Omega parked in a lot in front of the Burghölzli, Zurich University's psychiatric clinic--about 2,300 feet away from the Bührle Collection villa. Both works were undamaged. The Cézanne and Degas canvases remain missing.