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Camille on the Beach by Monet
Camille on the BeachOil on canvas, 1870 Camille on the Beach is one of several beach pictures Monet painted while staying in Trouville. Camille Doncieux was seven years younger than Monet. The couple met in 1865, shortly after Monet returned from Algeria. She posed for him while he was working on Le Dejeuner sur l'herbe, and was the model for the virtuoso piece The Woman in a Green Dress, which was such a success at the Salon of 1866 that Monet flirted with the idea of making society portraiture his career. Right up to her death she sat for him regularly, appearing frequently as a female figure in a rural landscape. Some of these canvases are among Monet's masterpieces. Shortly before leaving Paris for Trouville, Camille and Claude were married in a civil ceremony performed at the town hall of the eighth arrondissement. Courbet was one of the witnesses. Camille's parents were present, and the affair was conducted with proper formality. All that marred the occasion was the absence of Monet's farther and aunt, who regarded the union as a disastrous misalliance. The Doncieux family had the foresight to insist on a marriage settlement that allowed their daughter to retain control of her own small dowry, an insurance against the prodigal instincts of their future son-in-law. While they were staying in Trouville, Monet painted many scenes of Camille on the beach, in various poses. Although the pictures resemble one another closely, it is possible that she was not the only model Monet used. This particular portrait however, titled Camille on the Beach, is almost certainly of Camille. Monet never sold it and it remained in the possession of their second son, Michel, until he died.
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