MURA · THE COLLECTION · CHILDE HASSAM

Saint-Cloud

Saint-Cloud is a small watercolour by the American painter Childe Hassam, made in 1889 during his years in France. It measures 18 by 27.5 cm and shows the park of Saint-Cloud, on the Seine just west of Paris. It came to the Art Institute of Chicago as the bequest of Marion E. Merrill.

Childe Hassam · 1889 · Watercolor on paper · Impressionism · story written 25 September 2026

What you are looking at

The catalogue entry describes a small figure pausing on broad garden steps beneath deep green trees. Saint-Cloud is a commune in the western suburbs of Paris, ten kilometres from the centre. Its park, now the Domaine national de Saint-Cloud, covers 460 hectares on the left bank of the Seine and contains the ruins of the Château de Saint-Cloud, built in 1572 and destroyed by fire in 1870 during the Franco-Prussian War. The museum's record gives no further description of the sheet.

How it was painted

Hassam was born in the Dorchester neighbourhood of Boston in 1859. He began as a wood engraver and illustrator, and his preferred medium in his early years was watercolour, mostly outdoor studies; his first solo exhibition, in Boston in 1883, was of watercolours. He moved to Paris to study figure drawing and painting at the Académie Julian, but soon left the formal classes for self-study. He exhibited at all three Salons held during his Paris stay and contributed four paintings to the Exposition Universelle of 1889, winning a bronze medal. That same year he and his wife returned to the United States and settled in New York. Saint-Cloud, dated 1889, therefore comes from the very end of his French period, when he was moving towards a lighter palette and softer touch.

Where it went

The Art Institute's record gives no provenance and no exhibition history for the watercolour beyond its credit line, Bequest of Marion E. Merrill. The museum lists no current gallery for it.

Why it is in Mura

It belongs to Mura's Impressionist Life collection with a pastoral mood: a pause on garden steps in the shade.