Water Lily Pond
by Claude Monet
The Japanese footbridge at Giverny in 1900, one of eighteen versions of the motif Monet painted in a single campaign — the pond he had dug himself, becoming the subject that would occupy the rest of his life.
- 1900
- Oil on canvas
About Claude Monet
The bridge and the surface
The wooden bridge arches across the top of the canvas, green against a dense screen of willow and other planting that closes off any view beyond. Below it the pond fills the rest of the picture, carrying pads and flowers in horizontal drifts and, between them, the reflected greens and darks of everything growing on the bank.
There is no sky and no horizon — only the water and what is behind it, compressed into a single vertical plane. The lilies and the reflections mingle on the same surface, which was the explicit theme of this group of canvases.
A garden he had to dig
Monet bought the property at Giverny in 1890, and in 1893 began converting the marshy ground behind the house into a water garden. He had the pond dug and built a Japanese-style wooden bridge across its narrow end, then planted the banks with a mixture of exotic and local species. The famous water lilies were part of the scheme from the start.
The result is unusual as a subject: not a landscape Monet found, but one he designed, planted and maintained specifically in order to paint it. From the late 1890s until his death in 1926 it was his principal motif.
Eighteen versions
This canvas belongs to a group of eighteen paintings of the bridge and pond made in 1899 and 1900, all working the same view and the same idea — lilies floating on a surface that simultaneously reflects the vegetation above and around it.
Monet sold it to the dealer Léonce Rosenberg in Paris in December 1900, within months of finishing it. It passed to the Prince de Wagram, back to Rosenberg, and then to Durand-Ruel, who bought it in Paris on 22 July 1914 for 21,000 francs and sold it in New York the following spring to Arthur Meeker of Chicago for $7,400. It entered the Art Institute of Chicago in 1933.
Close reading
Reading the work, detail by detail
The Japanese bridge gives this earlier water-garden picture a clear architectural center. The details show how quickly that structure is absorbed into foliage and reflection.
1.The bridge is a curve held inside other curves
The arch is the picture's firmest shape, but vines and willow branches crowd its rail and soften its outline. Monet gives the garden a piece of geometry and then lets growth overtake it.
2.Pads sit on a water surface made from reflections
The pads lie horizontally while dark reflected forms drop beneath them. That crossing tells the eye which marks float and which recede, even though both occupy the same literal layer of paint.
3.Willow branches turn the garden into enclosure
The hanging branches close the upper corners like a curtain and repeat themselves in the pond. The bridge leads across the image, but the foliage keeps the world beyond it inaccessible. This is a garden composed as an interior.
Timeline
1890
Monet buys the property at Giverny.
1893
Begins converting the marshy ground behind the house into a pond, with a Japanese-style wooden bridge at its narrow end.
1900
Paints this canvas, one of eighteen versions of the motif from 1899–1900, and sells it to Léonce Rosenberg in December.
1914
Bought by Durand-Ruel in Paris on 22 July for 21,000 francs.
1933
Enters the Art Institute of Chicago with the Coburn Memorial Collection.
Frequently asked questions
Is the Japanese bridge at Giverny still there?
Yes. The garden at Giverny is maintained and open to visitors, and the bridge over the water-lily pond remains one of its central features.
Did Monet build the pond himself?
He had it made. In 1893, three years after buying the Giverny property, he began converting the marshy ground behind the house into a pond, adding the bridge and planting the banks.
How many versions of this view did Monet paint?
Eighteen canvases of the bridge and pond come from the 1899–1900 campaign alone. The water garden as a whole occupied him for around thirty years and some 250 paintings.
Where is this painting now?
At the Art Institute of Chicago, in the Mr. and Mrs. Lewis Larned Coburn Memorial Collection (accession number 1933.441).
