1. Unequivocally science has proven this work to be authentic.

2. Historically, we know that:

	A. Some of Monet's works were lost and he did not log all of his early works. Our research concludes that this is a work that falls into this category.
	B. Monet never had any students.
	C. Monet's style is well known.
	D. Monet's signature, changes numerous times.
	E. The provenance as we know it does coincide with the recorded history as the experts know it.

3. Considering that the Wildenstein group has created a ledger trying to record all of the works of Claude Monet, is with out question, an enormous undertaking and is to be complemented on their thus far achievement. However, there are many paintings yet to be discovered from a time period early in Monet's life, which remain a mystery.
 
As is known by the ledger which begins its recordation in 1874 or there about, Monet, at that period began to stabilize his life. Hence, his works, as he becomes more successful and recognized are easier to trace and find. Remembering that to his death he held paintings that he created early in life, maintained for his personal needs and never signed or dated them. This discovered masterpiece of a young Camille is such a work. It is the belief of our research that this discovered work was produced between 1865 and 1867, later sold and Monet's recollection was that he painted it in 1871 and thus signed that date to it.
 
There are several anecdotes collected first hand from Monet or from one of his dearest friends M. George Clemenceau. The anecdotes are an attempt to complete a sketch of Monet's life in order to shed light on his character and establish traits of disposition and temperament.
 
"From 1864 to 1870, no painter sold as much as I did in the suburbs of Paris," Claude Monet told us one day as we strolled along the Epte river in the shady garden he had filled with water lilies. "It was not because the cost of living was so high. For 6 or 8 hundred francs per year, one could rent peasant cottages between Versailles and St. Germain, surrounded by pretty gardens and more graceful in their rusticity than the costliest villa of the rich bourgeois. But one had to stay fed, and I was a real gourmet. I also liked to invite friends like Pissaro, Sisley, and Renoir over for a good dinner. So as cheap as it was to buy cutlets, Saint Emilion, Vouvray, Beaune, and Chambertin, and as great an amount of credit as I was given by the grocer and the baker, the time would eventually arrive when the bills had to be paid. When we could not pay them, we would be forced to vacate, bringing along only what was absolutely necessary, and leaving behind the furniture, cooking utensils, and all the paintings which had not yet been sold. This is how I lost over 200 paintings, both signed and unsigned, in a six or seven year period. They were sold cheaply by my creditors in Ville-d'Array, Gauches, Louvecienues or Bougival and other places as well. What has become of them? Are they being used to adorn a wine merchants hutch, the back room of a grocery store, or a meat market? Or have they fallen into the hands of people with taste? From the day Boussod and Valadon joined Durand-Ruel to sell my possessions, several dealers became aware of this and set out to search the region for these lost children. I only know of one man who purchased a certain number of my paintings. It was the brother of van Gogh, the painter. I learned of this because he brought them to me to sign."²
 
"Monet's personal affairs were also growing more complicated. His lover, a nineteen-year-old girl of humble origins, was Camille Doncieux, the Camille, of his first Salon acceptance. She had been his model since the time they met, in about 1865, and he was passionately in love with her. Monet was a gourmand when it came to women and he found Camille a veritable feast. With dark hair and serious eyes. She was an attractive and clearly intelligent woman. Monet's family were horrified by her background, and in order to curry favour he was forced to pretend they did not live together, although it was evident from his paintings at the time that she was very much a part of his life. Until her death, Camille Doncieux was Monet's one and only model and she sat for him in almost every conceivable setting, patiently allowing him to create around her. She was a warm, self-possessed woman, expecting nothing, but enjoying, like Monet, the good things when they were able to afford them."¹
 
Perhaps a good title for this discovered masterpiece would be,
"A YOUNG CAMILLE"
by Claude Monet
 
¹Monet by K.E. Sullivan, Brockhampton Press, 1988 pgs. 18-19
²Stuckey, Charles Monet A Retrospect, Crown Publishers 1986, pg.344