Monet - Water Lilies 1916

A leading figure of Impressionism, Claude Monet (1840 – 1926) moved to his property in Giverny, Normandy, in 1883. It was at this time that he developed the representation of certain subjects in the form of series: haystacks, poplars, Rouen Cathedral and around 1902 his famous water lilies… Water Lilies is a series of approximately 250 impressionist oil paintings produced by the painter during the last 31 years of his life. These paintings represent the flower garden, and more particularly the water lily pond. He worked on the color effects created by light at different times of the day and year. Little by little the subject tends to disappear, the water lilies soon become nothing more than pretexts for painting and the boundaries between water and land gradually disappear... Purchased from the artist by the Japanese collector Kojiro Matsukata in 1921, this painting was requisitioned by the French government in 1944, then transferred to the Japanese government in 1959.

National Museum of Western Art, Tokyo, Matsukata Collection