One of France’s busiest trade ports, Le Havre sits at the mouth of the Seine and feeds into the English Channel. In painting there, Monet was not only returning to his childhood hometown but also following significant footsteps: the Norman coastline had been a popular destination for artists since the early 1800s. His mentor Eugène Boudin was renowned for his seascapes and marine studies of the area and Turner had included Le Havre in his printed volume, Turner’s annual tour, which focused on views of French rivers. Turner’s early example no doubt inspired Monet to consider the town’s industrial aspects for the first time.

For Impression, sunrise Monet chose to paint the south‑east of the outer port from the window of his hotel, the Grand Hôtel de l’Amirauté, in the early morning looking across the harbour shrouded in fog. The industrial elements of the docklands, tall masted ships and bobbing boats on the water are silhouetted by the glow of the rising sun. In the decade leading up to the creation of Monet’s painting Le Havre had experienced a period of uninterrupted growth, doubling in size—1872 saw the transit of more than 310,000 tons of merchandise and nearly 260,000 travellers connecting to Trouville, Honfleur, Caen and Southampton.