deathbed of a lady
Claude Monet, Camille Monet on her Deathbed, 1879. Oil on canvas. Musee d’Orsay, Paris. Image via Wikimedia Commons.
Camille Doncieux died in 1879, aged only 32. This image was made by her husband, Impressionist painter, Claude Monet. Though she features in upwards of thirty of his works, as well as that of his contemporaries, here she lies on a bed with her eyes closed, lips slightly parted, shrouded in a flurry of lilacs, greys and pinks, with a small bouquet on her chest.
Sometime before Camilles’ death, we know a Catholic priest performed the Last Rites for her. This is a religious sacrament designed to prepare the soul for the afterlife - a chance to wipe the slate clean before any divine judgement. This practice aligns with an idea called ‘Tamed Death’ (coined by Philippe Ariès). It’s a term referencing the Middle Ages, a time when everyone was acutely aware of death – ideally, it was something you prepared for - body and spirit.
Last Rites were also communal, with the family often in the room, or at least in the home. This experience of death is personal in a way that is somewhat removed from what is normalised nowadays, wherein the deathbed has shifted from the home to the hospital, and the care of the body, at least in most of the Western world, occurs in the hands of doctors, orderlies, morticians and funeral directors.
On a more personal level, Last Rites are also meant to assuage the anxiety of the dying, to give them courage. They’re a final opportunity for all involved to find peace. Monet was quoted as saying “I was at the deathbed of a lady who had been, and still was very dear to me…I found myself staring at [her] tragic countenance, trying to identify the shades in the colour, the proportion of light.” [1]
That reaction, while being totally typical of an artist, is also so humanising - finding the little things in what is an incredibly difficult moment. In a sense, this portrait is a kind of Last Rite. Rendered in Monet’s signature style of loose brushwork and pastels, Camille is immortalised in her final moments.
[1] Mary Mathews Gedo, Monet and His Muse: Camille Monet in the Artist's Life. Chicago: University of Chicago, 2010.
