MURA · THE COLLECTION · CLAUDE MONET

San Giorgio Maggiore at Dusk

The church of San Giorgio Maggiore and its bell tower stand across the water from Venice in the last light, dissolving into a sky and a lagoon of the same colour. Claude Monet painted it during his only visit to Venice, in the autumn of 1908, and it hangs today in the National Museum Cardiff.

Claude Monet · 1908 · Oil on canvas · Impressionism · story written 25 September 2026

What you are looking at

Wikipedia's description is of "mysterious buildings that seem to magically appear from the surrounding landscape", with "the Church of San Giorgio Maggiore with its bell tower rising to the top". The church stands on its own island across the water from the city, and Monet painted it as the sun went down behind it. The canvas is oil, 65.2 by 92.4 centimetres, in the collection of Amgueddfa Cymru, Museum Wales, accession number NMW A 2485.

How it was painted

Monet went to Venice in 1908, staying first at the Palazzo Barbaro and then at the Hotel Britannia until December. He painted the church "in six different lighting conditions", one of a series of Venetian motifs he took home to finish at Giverny, and a second version of this view is in the Artizon Museum in Tokyo. He was sixty-eight.

Where it went

The Cardiff version "was acquired in Paris by the Welsh art collector Gwendoline Davies", and she bequeathed it to the National Museum of Wales, and the museum has since released its photograph under a CC0 dedication, which is how Mura can show it. The painting became widely known in 1999 when it appeared in the film The Thomas Crown Affair, where it is stolen from the Metropolitan Museum of Art.

Why it is in Mura

Dusk is the hour most televisions are on. Mura keeps this for the evening, when the room and the picture are the same colour.