Water Lilies
1916 · Oil on canvas · National Museum of Western Art, Tokyo
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About this work
- Artist
- Claude Monet (1840–1926)
- Year
- 1916
- Medium
- Oil on canvas
- Original size
- 200.5 × 201 cm
- Collection
- National Museum of Western Art, Tokyo (Matsukata Collection)
- Movement
- Impressionism
- Series
- Water Lilies (Nymphéas)
A square canvas two metres across, painted in 1916 at Giverny, where Monet had spent two decades shaping the lily pond that became the subject of his late work. The horizon is gone: the whole surface is water, with clusters of pink and yellow blooms floating on reflections of sky and willow. Monet was in his mid-seventies and working on the vast Grandes Décorations for the Orangerie in Paris; studies at this scale let him test how colour alone could hold a composition. This version was bought from the artist by the Japanese industrialist Kōjirō Matsukata and is now the centrepiece of the National Museum of Western Art in Tokyo. Its loose, layered brushwork, where strokes of violet and green sit over one another without blending, is a direct link between Impressionism and the abstraction that followed.
This exhibition-poster edition shows the whole work beneath original typography set in-house. The original is in the public domain.
Where it works
Horizonless pond and loose violet-green strokes read almost as abstraction, so it sits easily over a sofa or bed where a busier scene would tire. Natural wood and a pale wall keep it calm; 24×36 lets the surface breathe.
Style, size & framing detail
- Style
- Exhibition poster of a Impressionism painting
- Era
- 20th century (1916)
- Orientation
- Portrait
- Palette
- cornflower blue, cream & beige
- Mood
- calm
- Rooms
- 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 Water Lilies in the public domain?
What is it printed on?
When was 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.
