Blue Water Lilies
1916–1919 · Oil on canvas · Musée d'Orsay, Paris
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About this work
- Artist
- Claude Monet (1840–1926)
- Year
- 1916–1919
- Medium
- Oil on canvas
- Original size
- 200 × 200 cm
- Collection
- Musée d'Orsay, Paris
- Movement
- Impressionism
- Series
- Water Lilies (Nymphéas)
A two-metre square of pond painted between 1916 and 1919 at Giverny, with willow branches trailing down from the top edge and lily pads and white blooms floating on water that shifts from deep blue to violet and green. There is no bank and no horizon; the viewer looks straight down into the reflections. Monet was in his late seventies and his eyesight was failing with cataracts, which may account for the intensity of the blues. Canvases of this format were working studies for the panoramic Water Lilies he gave to France in 1922, now in the Orangerie. This one stayed in the artist's studio and entered the Musée d'Orsay in 1981. The brushwork is open and vertical, closer to abstraction than anything he had painted before.
This exhibition-poster edition shows the whole work beneath original typography set in-house. The original is in the public domain.
Where it works
Deep blues shading to violet make this a bedroom piece first, over the bed at 24×36 where the downward view into water settles a room. Dark wood on a white or pale blue wall; hang beside the 1916 Water Lilies for a pair of ponds.
Style, size & framing detail
- Style
- Exhibition poster of a Impressionism painting
- Era
- 20th century (1916–1919)
- Orientation
- Portrait
- Palette
- cornflower blue, cream & beige
- Mood
- calm
- Rooms
- bedroom, living room, dining room, dorm room, hallway or entryway
- Good gift for
- housewarming, anniversary, art lovers
Size. We'd hang this one at 24×36. Prints at 12×18, 16×24, 24×36 in — 12×18 for a shelf, desk or a gallery-wall grid; 16×24 above a desk, console or in a hallway; 24×36 as the statement piece above a sofa or bed.
Framing. Exhibition posters sit best in a slim black frame with no mat — the typeset margin is the mat.
Pairing. Pairs as a set of three with other famous painting prints (10% off three or more).
Details & materials
Shipping & returns
Is this the whole painting, or a crop?
Is Blue Water Lilies in the public domain?
What is it printed on?
When was Blue Water Lilies painted, and in what medium?
What size works above a sofa or bed?
About this design
The Madten promise
A fine-art print
The same artwork as a clean fine-art print — the image shown large with a minimal caption.
