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Water Lily Pond

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Compare the floating lily pads with the deeper vertical reflections. Notice that there is no bridge or distant shoreline to orient the view.

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This 1917–19 painting is a later pond view than Monet’s bridge scene of 1900. It belongs to a group of nineteen smaller canvases made alongside his monumental water-lily project for France. He developed such pictures outdoors and reworked them in the studio, bringing observation and sustained revision together.

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Oil on canvas · 130.2 × 201.9 cm · Art Institute of Chicago · Impressionism

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Details and source

Museum title
Water Lily Pond
Artist
Claude Monet (French, 1840–1926)
Date
1917–19
Medium
Oil on canvas
Dimensions
130.2 × 201.9 cm (51 1/2 × 79 1/2 in.); Framed: 147.4 × 218.5 × 9.9 cm (58 × 86 × 3 7/8 in.)
Credit line
Gift of Mrs. Harvey Kaplan
Image license
CC0 1.0 · Public domain
Museum record
Art Institute of Chicago

Artist’s life 1840–1926

Impressionism c. 1860–1900

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Galler’s rooms and hanging scale are imagined. The image is the museum’s original digital reproduction.

Water Lily Pond · Claude Monet, 1917–19
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Water Lily Pond, Claude Monet

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