Notre Dame and the Seine

Notre Dame and the Seine from 1900 was painted during Henri's final extended stay in Paris, when he was absorbing the city's visual richness before returning definitively to America. Notre Dame as a subject had attracted countless painters, but Henri approaches the cathedral from the river with the same tonal directness he brought to portraiture — the architecture rendered as mass and light rather than as Gothic detail. The New Britain Museum of American Art in Connecticut holds this canvas, documenting Henri's relationship with Paris as a place of serious artistic formation rather than tourist spectacle.

Henri captures Notre Dame through bold tonal contrasts — the cathedral's gray stone mass against the reflective Seine — using broad, confident strokes rather than architectural precision. The river's surface is painted with horizontal dragging strokes that capture movement and reflection simultaneously.