Currently on view
Water Lilies and Japanese Bridge
Claude Monet, 1840–1926; born Paris, France; died Giverny, France
Water Lilies and Japanese Bridge represents two of Monet’s greatest achievements: his gardens at Giverny and the series of paintings they inspired. In 1883 the artist moved to this country town, near Paris but just across the border of Normandy, and immediately began to redesign the property. In 1893, Monet purchased an adjacent tract, which included a small brook, and transformed the site into an Asian-inspired oasis of cool greens, exotic plants, and calm waters, enhanced by a Japanese footbridge. The serial approach embodied in this work—one of about a dozen paintings in which Monet returned to the same view under differing weather and light conditions—was one of his great formal innovations. He was committed to painting directly from nature as frequently as possible and whenever weather permitted, sometimes working on eight or more canvases in the same day. Monet’s project to capture ever-shifting atmospheric conditions came to be a hallmark of the Impressionist style.
More Context
Handbook Entry
Water Lilies and Japanese Bridge represents two of Monet’s greatest achievements: his gardens at Giverny and the paintings they inspired. Monet moved to Giverny in 1883 and immediately began to develop the property. For him, the gardens were both a passion and a second artistic medium. His Asian garden was not part of the original estate; it was located on an adjacent property with a small brook, which he purchased and enlarged into a pond for a water garden in 1893. He transformed the site into an inspired vision of cool greens and calm, reflective waters, enhanced by exotic plants such as bamboo, ginkgo, and Japanese fruit trees and a Japanese footbridge. It was not until 1899, however, that he began a series of views of the site, of which this is one. A careful craftsman who reworked his canvases multiple times, Monet was committed to painting directly from nature as much as possible and for as long as he had the correct conditions; thus, he could work on as many as eight or more canvases a day, devoting as little as an hour or less to each. In this case, he set up his easel at the edge of the water-lily pond and worked on several paintings of the subject as part of a single process. Monet’s gardens and paintings show the same fascination with the effects of time and weather on the landscape. Both are brilliant expressions of his unique visual sensitivity and emotional response to nature. At Giverny, he literally shaped nature for his brush, cultivating vistas to paint.
More About This Object
"Non Più di Fiori" (La Clemenza di Tito, 1791, Wolfgang Amadeus Mozart, 1756–1791)
"Non Più di Fiori" (La Clemenza di Tito, 1791, Wolfgang Amadeus Mozart, 1756–1791)
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Artist-in-Residence Talk: Liu Xiaodong
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Tigers’ Eyes on Alabama PaperInformation
Oil on canvas
1899
90.5 x 89.7 cm (35 5/8 x 35 5/16 in.) frame: 129.5 x 132.1 x 15.3 cm (51 x 52 x 6 in.)
From the Collection of William Church Osborn, Class of 1883, trustee of Princeton University (1914-1951), president of the Metropolitan Museum of Art (1941-1947); given by his family
Europe, France, Haute-Normandie, Giverny
Europe, France, Haute-Normandie, Giverny, Monet's Water Lilly Pond
Signed and dated bottom right, in red: Claude Monet 99
Claude Monet; sold to Galerie Georges Petit, Galerie Bernheim-Jeune and I. Montaignac, Paris, December 1899; sold to Durand-Ruel 1900; sold to Henry Osborne Havemeyer, New York, 1901; sold to Durand-Ruel, 1902; sold to William Church Osborn, New York, 1905; 1972 given by his son, Earl D. Osborn, to the Princeton University Art Museum.
Stephen Lucius Gwynn, Claude Monet and his garden: the story of an artist's paradise, (New York: The Macmillan Company, 1934)., p. 92 (illus.)
4796 1934Denis Rouart, Jean Dominique Rey and Robert Maillard, Monet, nymphéas; ou, Les miroirs du temp, (Paris: F. Hazan, 1972)., p. 153 (illus.)
4797 1972Hedy B. Landman, European and American art from Princeton alumni collections, (Princeton, NJ: Art Museum, Princeton University, 1972).
, no. 63 (illus.)
568 1972"Acquisitions 1972", Record of the Art Museum, Princeton University 32, no. 1 (1973): p. 20-30.
, p. 21; p. 22 (illus.)
3442 1973"[Chronique des arts et de la curiosité: supplément à la Gazette des beaux-arts, no. 1249 (Feb., 1973)]", Chronique des arts et de la curiosité: supplément à la Gazette des beaux-arts, no. 1249 (Feb., 1973)., p. 159, fig. 560 (illus.)
4794 1973Eugenia S. Robbins, "College museum notes", Art journal 32, no. 3 (Spring, 1973): p. 312-324+326., p. 316 (illus.)
4795 1973Daniel Wildenstein, Claude Monet: biographie et catalogue raisonné, (Lausanne; Paris: La Bibliothèque des arts, 1974-)., Vol. 4: no. 1509
4440 1974William S. Lieberman, Modern masters, Manet to Matisse, (New York: MOMA, 1975)., cat. no. 80
4798 1975Amine Haase, "Monets meisterwerke lebt wieder", Art, das kunstmagazin (Apr., 1981).
, p. 24ff
4800 1982Nakayama Kimio, Tōno Yoshiaki and Ōoka Makoto, Mone = Monet, (Tokyo: Shūeisha, 1985).
, Vol. 1: pl. 51, p. 51
4801 1985Allen Rosenbaum and Francis F. Jones, Selections from The Art Museum, Princeton University, (Princeton, NJ: The Art Museum, Princeton University, 1986), p. 105 (illus.)
1899 1986Christian Geelhaar, et. al., Claude Monet, nympheas: impression, vision, (Basel: Kunstmuseum Basel, 1986)., p. 30, no. 7 (illus.)
4802 1986Lorenz Eitner, An outline of 19th century European painting: from David through Cézanne, (New York: Harper & Row, 1987-1988)., Vol. 2: pl. 334
4805 1987Nobou Abe, Mone, (Tokyo: Asahishinbunsha, 1988)., p. 94, fig. 56
4803 1988Richard Kendall, Monet by himself: paintings, drawings, pastels, letters, (London: Macdonald Orbis, 1989)., p. 269 (Illus.)
4804 1989Alice Cooley Frelinghuysen, Splendid legacy: the Havemeyer collection, (New York: Metropolitan Museum of Art, 1993)., p. 367, no. 413; p. 227, pl. 220; p. 366 (illus.); p. 36
4806 1993Paul Hayes Tucker, Monet: a retrospective, (Nagoya: Chunichi Shimbun, 1994)., cat. no. 70; p. 201 (color illus.)
4808 1994Charles F. Stuckey and Sophia Shaw, Claude Monet: 1840-1926, (New York, NY: Thames & Hudson; Chicago: Art Institute of Chicago, 1995)., p. 134 (color illus.)
4809 1995John S. Werner, "Aging through the eyes of Monet," Mitteilungen - Alexander von Humboldt Stiftung no. 69 (Dec., 1996)., p. 13, fig. 13
4812 1996Paul Hayes Tucker, George T.M. Shackelford and MaryAnne Stevens, Monet in the 20th century, (London: Royal Academy of Arts; Boston: Museum of Fine Arts; New Haven: Published in association with Yale University Press, 1998)., p. 22, fig. 20; p. 23
4811 1998Monet: le cycle des nymphéas: catalogue sommaire: 6 mai-2 aout̂ 1999, Museée national de l’Orangerie, (Paris: Réunion des musées nationaux, 1999)., cat. no. 2 (illus.)
4810 1999"Monet", Shukan bijutsukan (The museums of the world) 12, (Tōkyō: Kōdansha, 2000?)., Existing Color Transparencies, three-month rental
14 2000David Bromfield, Monet & Japan (Canberra: National Gallery of Australia; Seattle: Distributed in the United States of America by University of Washington Press, 2001)., cat. no. 31; p.53 (color illus.), p. 108 (color illus.)
4448 2001Valerie Ann Leeds and Holly Koons McCullough, Ray Ellis in Retrospect: A Painter's Journey (Savannah, Ga.: Telfair Museum of Art; New York; London: Abbeville Press, 2004)
, fig. 16, 29, illus.
Heather Lemonedes, Lynn Federle Orr, and David Steel et al., Monet in Normandy (New York: Rizzoli; Enfield: Publishers Group UK, 2006).
,
Princeton University Art Museum: Handbook of the Collection (New Haven, CT: Yale University Press, 2007), p. 208-209 (illus.)
474 2007Jean-Dominique Rey and Denis Rouart, Monet water lilies: the complete series. (Paris: Flammarion, 2007)., p. 120 (illus.)
1240 2008Robert Kudielka, The eye's mind: Bridget Riley: collected writings, 1965-2009, (London: Thames and Hudson, 2009)., p. 243 (illus.), 343
1218 2009Paul Hayes Tucker, "Monet: Public and Private," in Claude Monet: late work, (New York: Gagosian Gallery, 2010).
, fig. 9, p. 25 (illus.), 216
790 2010Know the artist: Set 1, (Glenview, IL: Crystal Productions, 1998).
1313 2011Roy Lichtenstein: landscapes in the Chinese style, (Hong Kong: Gagosian Gallery, 2011).
1479 2011Princeton University Art Museum: Handbook of the Collections (Princeton, NJ: Princeton University Art Museum, 2013), p. 219
1994 2013Suzanne Greub, ed., Monet: Lost in Translation (Basel: Art Centre; Munich: Hirmer, 2015)., fig. 79, p. 176 (illus.)
6857 2015