Social Sharing

Water Lilies

ca. 1914-1917

Claude Monet

Curator Emily Beeny and radio journalist Hana Baba on “Water Lilies”
Gallery 19

Monet character voice: It took me some time to understand my water lilies. And then, suddenly, I had a revelation of the magic of my pond. I took my palette. From this moment, I have had almost no other model.
Narrator: Claude Monet moved his family from the Paris suburbs to a house in the northern French countryside, thirty years before he made this painting. The garden he created there became the beloved subject of his work for the rest of his long life. This is one of many paintings of his water garden. It’s inspired by the Japanese prints he loved and collected. He wrote:
Monet character voice: The crucial thing is the mirror of water, whose appearance changes constantly with the reflections of the sky.
Narrator: Monet probably began the painting in the spring of 1914. He was emerging from grief following the deaths of his wife and son, into a new burst of hope and creativity.
Monet character voice: I am working at full speed, and no matter what the weather, I paint.
Narrator: Chief Curator Emily Beeny:
Emily Beeny: What I love about this painting is that the waterlilies and the cloud seem to occupy the same surface.
Narrator: This perspective may partly come from looking down from the little Japanese bridge Monet had built over the pond, but also because he would continue working on canvases in his studio, sometimes for years.
Emily Beeny: If we were to look at an X-ray of this painting, it would look like a snowstorm because of how many times he repainted, revisited.
Narrator: Over the years he worked on the painting, World War I was being fought nearby – sometimes so close that he could hear guns booming.
Emily Beeny: And I think it's so interesting to think about that terrible conflict raging at the very moment when he is painting this picture of tremendous tranquility and literal reflection.

Dark blossoms and bright leaves drift among the reflected clouds on the water’s surface. No horizon is in sight. In the 1880s and 1890s, Monet developed a small natural pond on his property at Giverny into an extensive water garden inspired by Japanese ukiyo-e prints. This garden functioned as a kind of outdoor studio where he ultimately painted some two hundred fifty pictures, among them several of his most iconic works. This example likely dates to the mid-1910s but betrays no hint of the First World War raging not far from Giverny.

Curator Emily Beeny and radio journalist Hana Baba on “Water Lilies”
Gallery 19

Monet character voice: It took me some time to understand my water lilies. And then, suddenly, I had a revelation of the magic of my pond. I took my palette. From this moment, I have had almost no other model.
Narrator: Claude Monet moved his family from the Paris suburbs to a house in the northern French countryside, thirty years before he made this painting. The garden he created there became the beloved subject of his work for the rest of his long life. This is one of many paintings of his water garden. It’s inspired by the Japanese prints he loved and collected. He wrote:
Monet character voice: The crucial thing is the mirror of water, whose appearance changes constantly with the reflections of the sky.
Narrator: Monet probably began the painting in the spring of 1914. He was emerging from grief following the deaths of his wife and son, into a new burst of hope and creativity.
Monet character voice: I am working at full speed, and no matter what the weather, I paint.
Narrator: Chief Curator Emily Beeny:
Emily Beeny: What I love about this painting is that the waterlilies and the cloud seem to occupy the same surface.
Narrator: This perspective may partly come from looking down from the little Japanese bridge Monet had built over the pond, but also because he would continue working on canvases in his studio, sometimes for years.
Emily Beeny: If we were to look at an X-ray of this painting, it would look like a snowstorm because of how many times he repainted, revisited.
Narrator: Over the years he worked on the painting, World War I was being fought nearby – sometimes so close that he could hear guns booming.
Emily Beeny: And I think it's so interesting to think about that terrible conflict raging at the very moment when he is painting this picture of tremendous tranquility and literal reflection.

Artist: Claude Monet
Title: Water Lilies
Date: ca. 1914-1917
Place of Creation: Giverny
Object Type: Painting
Medium: Oil on canvas
Dimensions: 65 3/8 x 56 in. (166.1 x 142.2 cm) Image: 71 x 57 1/2 in. (180.34 x 146.05 cm)
Credit Line: Museum purchase, Mildred Anna Williams Collection
Accession Number: 1973.3

The artist’s studio, Giverny, France [1]
By descent, to his son, Michel Monet (1878-1966), Giverny, France
[Sold to Katia Granoff, Paris, ca. 1955] [2]
Sold to John Huston, Los Angeles and Ireland, 1956
[Possibly sold to O’Hana Gallery, London, 1970] [3]
[Spencer A. Samuels & Co., New York, by 1971] [4]
Sold to Mrs. Enid Annenberg Haupt, New York, 1971
[Consigned to Spencer A. Samuels & Co., New York, 1972]
Sold to the Fine Arts Museums of San Francisco, 1973

[1] See Wildenstein 1996 IV, p. 843, no. 1788.
[2] Per letter from Marc Larock, director general of Galerie Katia Granoff, 24 September 1991, object file, Fine Arts Museums of San Francisco.
[3] Per Wildenstein 1996 IV, p. 843, no. 1788.
[4] As listed in 10 November 1972 invoice received from Spencer A. Samuels &Co., object file, Fine Arts Museums of San Francisco.
Washington, D.C., The National Gallery of Art, April–November 1971. Collection loan.

Fine Arts Museums of San Francisco (California Palace of the Legion of Honor), January 19– March 17, 1974; Santa Barbara Museum of Art, March 23–May 5, 1974; Fine Arts Gallery of San Diego, May 18–June 30, 1974. “Claude Monet: Paintings in California Collections,” no. 11.

The Art Institute of Chicago, March 15–May 11, 1975. “Paintings by Monet,” no. 118.

Basel, Kunstmuseum Basel, July 20–October 19, 1986. “Claude Monet: Nympheas, Impression–Vision,” no. 30.

Tokyo Metropolitan Art Museum, April 10–June 14, 1992; Fukuoka Art Museum, July 1–26, 1992; Osaka Municipal Museum of Art, August 8–September 13, 1992; Yokohama, Sogo Museum of Art, September 23–October 25, 1992. “European Masters from the Fine Arts Museums of San Francisco,” no. 63.

Canberra, Australian National Gallery, November 14, 1992–January 31, 1993; Melbourne, National Gallery of Victoria, February 19–May 10, 1993; Auckland City Art Museum, June 5–August 29, 1993. “Rembrandt to Renoir: European Masterpieces from the Fine Arts Museums of San Francisco,” no. 63.

San Francisco, Fine Arts Museums of San Francisco, June 17– September 17, 2006; Raleigh, North Carolina Museum of Art, October 15, 2006– January 14, 2007; The Cleveland Museum of Art, February 18–May 20, 2007. “Monet in Normandy,” no. 59.

Paris, Galeries nationales, Grand Palais, September 22, 2010–January 24, 2011. “Claude Monet: 1840–1926,” no. 166.

Hartford, CT, Wadsworth Atheneum, February 17–June 12, 2011. “Monet’s Water Lilies: An Artist’s Obsession,” no. 7.

Charlottenlund, DK, Ordrupgaard, August 24–December 4, 2016. “Monet: Beyond Impressionism,” no cat. no.

San Francisco, The Fine Arts Museums of San Francisco (de Young Museum), February 16– May 27, 2019; Fort Worth, Kimbell Art Museum, June 16– September 15, 2019. “Monet: The Late Years,” no. 11.

The Hague, Kunstmuseum Den Haag, October 12, 2019–February 2, 2020. “Monet: The Garden Paintings.”
Rouart, Denis, and Jean–Dominique Rey, Monet: Nymphéas ou Les Miroirs du Temps, Paris: Fernand Hazan, 1972, repr. pg. 177.

Claude Monet, Paintings in California Collections, exh. cat., San Francisco: Fine Arts Museums of San Francisco, 1974, pg. 17, repr. pg. 31, no. 11.

Wise, Susan, ed., Paintings by Monet, exh. cat., Chicago: The Art Institute of Chicago, 1975, pg. 174, repr. pg. 175, no. 118.

Bordeaux, Jean–Luc, “Un Musée Français en Californie,” Connaissance des Arts, no. 299 (January 1977), pgs. 32–41, repr.

Sherman, Lila, Art Museums of America: A guide to the Collections in the United States and Canada, New York: William Morrow and Company, 1980, pg. 36.

Wilson, William, The Los Angeles Times Book of California Museums, New York: H.N. Abrams, 1984, repr. pg. 81, pg. 82.

Wildenstein, Daniel, Claude Monet: Biographie et Catalogue Raisonné, vol. 4, Lausanne and Paris: Bibliothèque des Arts, 1985, pg. 252, repr. pg. 253, no. 1788.

Geelhaar, Christian, Nympheas: Impression, Vision, exh. cat., Basel: Kunstmuseum Basel, 1986, repr. pg. 68, pg. 175, no. 30.

Forbes, James, “Gallery Dedications,” Triptych (Summer 1988), pg. 18, repr.

Nash, Steven A., Lynn Federle Orr and Marion C. Stewart, European Masterworks from the Fine Arts Museums of San Francisco, exh. Cat., Tokyo: Tokyo Metropolitan Art Museum, 1992, pg. 251, no. 63, repr., entry by Steven A. Nash.

Nash, Steven A., Lynn Federle Orr and Marion C. Stewart, Rembrandt to Renoir: European Masterpieces from the Fine Arts Museums of San Francisco, exh. cat., Canberra: National Gallery of Australia, 1992, pgs. 164, 166, repr. pg. 165, no. 63, entry by Steven A. Nash.

Nash, Steven A., Lynn Federle Orr, Marion C. Stewart, Masterworks of European Painting in the California Palace of the Legion of Honor, San Francisco: Fine Arts Museums of San Francisco, 1999, pg. 138, repr., entry by Steve A. Nash.

Wildenstein, Daniel, Claude Monet: Biographie et Catalogue Raisonné, vol. 4 (Nos. 1596–1983 et Les Grandes Décorations), Cologne: Taschen, 1999, repr. pg. 842, pg. 843, no. 1788.

Lemonedes, Heather, Lynn Federle Orr, and David Steel, Monet in Normandy, exh. cat., San Francisco: Fine Arts Museums of San Francisco, 2006, pgs. 168, 172, repr. pg. 171, no. 59, entry by Lynn Federle Orr.

Rouart, Julie (with Camille Sourisse), “Catalogue Raisonneé,” in Monet Water Lilies: The Complete Series, eds. Jean Dominique Rey and Denis Rouart, Paris: Flammarion, 2008, pg. 131, repr.

Cogeval, Guy, et. al., Claude Monet: 1840–1926, exh. cat., Paris: Réunion des musées nationaux, 2010, repr. pg. 341, pg. 371, no. 166.

Rubin, James H., “Near to Far: Monet’s World of Water Lilies,” in Monet’s Water Lilies: An Artist’s Obsession, ed. Eric Zafran, Hartford: Wadsworth Atheneum Museum of Art, 2011, pg. 31, no. 7, fig. 25.

Buron, Melissa, “Monet’s ‘Water Lilies’ Return to the Legion,” Fine Arts (Winter/Spring 2012), pg. 22, repr.

Tucker, Paul Hayes, “Monet’s Nympheas,” in Monet: Beyond Impressionism, exh. cat., ed. Anne–Birgitte Fonsmark, Copenhagen: Ordrupgaard, 2016, pg. 168, fig. 116, repr. pg. 169 (also repr. on cover).

Shackelford, George T.M., ed., Monet: The Late Years, Fort Worth: Kimbell Art Museum, 2019, repr. pg. 126, pgs. 127, 210, no. 11.

de Young

Legion of Honor

de Young

Legion of Honor

Water Lilies

Curator Emily Beeny and radio journalist Hana Baba on “Water Lilies”
Gallery 19

Curator Emily Beeny and radio journalist Hana Baba on “Water Lilies”
Gallery 19

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Social Sharing

Curator Emily Beeny and radio journalist Hana Baba on “Water Lilies” Gallery 19

Transcript

Curator Emily Beeny and radio journalist Hana Baba on “Water Lilies” Gallery 19

Transcript

Provenance

Exhibition History

Bibliography

Woman holding a swan, mid 4th century BC

Composition of Right Foot, 19th-20th century

Pipe Organ, 1924

The Little Eugène de Montesquiou-Fézensac Asleep, 1783

Motif pour tenue de reine, 2023

Woman's ensemble: dress (a) and bracelet (b), ca. 1920

Portrait of Bianca degli Utili Maselli and Her Children, ca. 1604-5

Portrait of a Youth through time, 2022

Curator Emily Beeny and radio journalist Hana Baba on “Water Lilies”
Gallery 19

Curator Emily Beeny and radio journalist Hana Baba on “Water Lilies”
Gallery 19