page_title: Bords de la Seine à Argenteuil
section_title: Authenticity
hierarchical_section_title: Bords de la Seine à Argenteuil / Authenticity
caption_attribution_description: English: This is a photo of Bords de la Seine a Argenteuil found in an obituary of Monet, published in Le Figaro Artistique, on the 16th December, 1926, written by Rene Chavange.
context_page_description: Bords de la Seine à Argenteuil is an oil painting controversially not accepted by the Wildenstein Institute which publishes the catalogue raisonné of works by Claude Monet. The painting is a landscape depicting the River Seine at Argenteuil in France. It is owned by Englishman David Joel.
  In 2011 Bords de la Seine à Argenteuil was featured on the British TV programme, Fake or Fortune?, in a failed attempt to establish it as an authentic Monet.
context_section_description: The painting was acquired by David Joel in 1992 for £40,000. Joel is an art historian who has published two art books, the first a catalogue raisonné of the marine paintings of Charles Brooking, the second a history of Monet at Vétheuil and on the Norman Coast. The painting had previously been offered for sale at auction, but failed to reach its £500,000 reserve. The title Bords de la Seine à Argenteuil along with the date, 1875, appears on the frame, and there is a painted signature of Claude Monet. In the years since he purchased it, Joel has attempted to establish it as an authentic Monet. The most widely accepted authority on Monet's work is the catalogue raisonné published by the Wildenstein Institute in Paris. The Wildenstein Institute has examined the painting once, after the death of Daniel Wildenstein, and does not accept it as genuine. Fiona Bruce (a journalist) and Philip Mould (an art dealer and historian) investigated the painting in the TV programme Fake or Fortune? first aired on 19 June 2011. The Art Access Research Centre scanned the picture using high resolution, infrared and X-ray photography. At the Lumiere Technology Centre the picture was scanned using a 240-megapixel camera and 13 light filters. The resulting image was examined by Iris Schaefer, the head of conservation at the Wallraf-Richartz-Museum in Cologne, who previously uncovered a fake Monet which had been accepted by the Wildenstein Institute. In her opinion, the Joel painting was genuine. The chemical analysis of paints used in the painting and signature were studied by Nicholas Eastaugh (Courtauld Institute of Art) and were found to conform precisely with Monet's palette and the mediums he used in 1873.
  The programme had the brushwork and signature examined by experts who concluded that they were by Monet. The programme argued that the painting was genuine, an opinion shared by a number of experts, including Monet scholars Professor John House (Courtauld Institute of Art), Professor Paul Hayes Tucker, and others. However the Wildenstein Institute did not accept their arguments, and maintains that the painting is a fake, based predominantly on the connoisseurship of the late Daniel Wildenstein. The only photograph he would have had access to was a small 4 cm x 8 cm black and white copy in an obituary of Monet, written by René Chavange for Le Figaro Artistique in 1926. The painting was sold by Georges Petit in 1918 to the Khalil Palace in Cairo, where it stayed until 1953. It is known that Khalil bought a second Monet from Petit at the same time.  This is W1520, Le pont aux nymphéas, signed but not dated, which remains in his collection in Cairo. Rodolphe Walter, of the Wildenstein Institute, confirms that all of Petit's records were destroyed in World War II.  As such, Daniel Wildenstein would have had no access to a photo of the painting other than the one in Le Figaro. 
  The Institute has since been provided with further photographs. Daniel Wildenstein was sent a photograph in 1992 by Christie's, which was rejected. After the curator of the Khalil Museum discovered an original photograph sent by Petit to Mohamed Mahmoud Khalil Museum in 1918 (discussed further below) Guy Wildenstein was informed, but did not change the verdict, relying instead on "connoisseurship".
caption: The photograph from the 1926 Le Figaro obituary
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