Claude Monet’s 1875 Loan Letter, Naming “La Japonaise,” Leads International Autograph Auctions Sale
A single sheet of paper can compress an era’s anxieties. On March 25, International Autograph Auctions will offer an online sale of roughly 1,600 autographs, manuscripts, and letters, led by a nearly pristine letter signed by French painter Claude Monet (1840–1926) that documents a moment of financial strain during the early years of Impressionism.
Dated October 18, 1875, the letter is expected to achieve €80,000–€120,000 ($92,100–$138,200). It centers on a 1,000 franc loan from Gustave Manet, a lawyer and manager and the brother of Monet’s fellow Impressionist Édouard Manet. Gustave Manet is also known for having married his brother’s rumored lover.
In the document, Monet confirms receipt of the funds and lays out the repayment plan with striking specificity. The loan, he writes, “shall be repayable from the proceeds of the sale of thirty-five of my paintings, to be conducted in the course of next February under the direction of Mr. Charles Oudart, auctioneer.” Monet adds that he has already sent eight works to Oudart and will deliver the remaining 27 as they are completed.
Among those paintings, Monet mentions “one depicting a Japanese woman,” a description that points to “La Japonaise (Camille Monet in Japanese Costume)” (1876), now in the collection of the Museum of Fine Arts, Boston. The painting would later become a flashpoint in discussions of Monet’s early market tactics: when it was sold at the Hôtel Drouot on April 14, 1876, it fetched 2,020 francs, a result that has long fueled speculation about whether the artist helped orchestrate the bidding with his patron Ernest Hoschedé.
The letter’s appearance at auction also underscores how precarious Monet’s finances could be even as the movement he helped define began to cohere. Impressionism’s early exhibitions were widely dismissed as too radical, and the broader economy offered little relief. The Panic of 1873 reverberated through France well into the 1880s, tightening discretionary spending among the very bourgeois collectors the artists needed. Paul Cézanne captured the mood in September 1874, reportedly lamenting that “All the bourgeois are unwilling to spend.”
Monet’s correspondence from the period suggests that the 1,000 franc request was unusually large. Letters he wrote to Gustave Manet between 1874 and 1875 show him repeatedly asking for smaller sums, typically 20 to 100 francs at a time.
Francisco Piñero, CEO of International Autograph Auctions, framed the document as more than a transactional record. “I think that what makes this particular document signed by Claude Monet so important historically is the light it sheds on the financial struggles of the early Impressionists,” he said in an email. “More than just a list of figures, it captures Monet’s resolve in the face of the movement’s unstable beginnings.”
As far as Piñero is aware, the 1875 letter has not previously been offered at auction. It did, however, appear in a 2018 exhibition at the Morgan Library & Museum in New York that celebrated handwritten materials from the collection of Brazilian author and publisher Pedro Corrêa do Lago. Piñero said he could not confirm whether Corrêa do Lago is consigning the Monet letter, adding that 31 additional letters from Monet included in the March 25 sale come from various European collectors.
For today’s market, where Monet remains among the most reliable blue-chip names, the letter offers a corrective: a reminder that the painter’s ascent was not a smooth glide toward acclaim, but a series of calculated risks, improvised financing, and faith that the next sale might finally keep the studio afloat.
