Moonlight by the Mediterranean

The picture was painted during Munch's second stay in Nice. In November 1891 he travelled to southern France with the artist Christian Skredsvig and his wife Maggie Plathe. Skredsvig described the journey and the stay in Dage og Nætter blant Kunstnere (Days and Nights among Artists) (1908), in a chapter entitled "Edvard Munch in Monte Carlo". Shortly before Christmas, the Skredsvig couple rented a house in Saint-Jean-Cap-Ferrat, between Nice and Monte Carlo. In February, Munch moved in with the married couple. In a letter to Aunt Karen, he writes: "Skredsvig lives in a beautiful villa near Nice -- just beside a small bay --" (emunch.no: MM N 780).

At Saint-Jean-Cap-Ferrat, Munch developed an interest in the landscape of the coastline and the Mediterranean sea. In Moonlight by the Mediterranean, he paints the curve of the beach, the mountains in the distance and the silhouettes of the vegetation in the foreground. Skredsvig describes how Munch put "a candle stump in the garden wall and painted the moonlight" (Skredsvig 1908, 152). The picture anticipates Munch's later depictions of moonlight on meandering shorelines. Like many of the works he painted during his stays in Nice, this one also shows a unifying use of blue tones.

The painting was gifted to the National Gallery by Olaf Schou in 1909. In the past, the dating of the work was disputed. In the National Gallery's catalogue from 1992, it is attributed to 1891, together with Night in Nice(The National Museum, NG.M.00394; NG cat. 1992-394). However, according to Gerd Woll, it is more likely that Munch painted the picture after moving in with the Skredsvigs at Saint-Jean-Cap-Ferrat in late February 1892 (Woll 2008, 259). After its first showing at Munch's exhibition at Tostrupgården in the autumn of 1892, the painting was included in the so-called "scandal exhibition" at the Verein Berliner Künstler later in the same year and in the ensuing exhibition tour. Drawing consequences from the revised dating, in 2012 the title was changed from Månenatt i Nizza (Moonlight in Nice) to Månenatt ved Middelhavet(Moonlight by the Mediterranean).

Wenche Volle

The text was first published in Edvard Munch in the National Museum. A comprehensive overview (Oslo: National Museum, 2022).

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