À propos de l’œuvre
Le Bassin aux nymphéas, reflets verts, par Claude Monet
Claude Monet · 1920 -1926 · Bührle Collection · Wildenstein 1979
The Water Lily Basin, green reflectionshand painted reproduction
More than four meters wide, the pool fills the entire field: no bank, no distinct sky, only columns of green and blue reflections crossed by white, yellow, pink and red water lilies.
Look at the work
A panorama without horizon where water contains the entire garden
The long upper band concentrates light leaves and flowers, but it does not form a stable bank. It floats in front of olive green, turquoise and dark blue reflections. Further down, the long vertical touches suggest the trees and the sky overturned in the water without ever directly describing them.
Water lilies are divided into very unequal groups. Isolated red flowers punctuate the sides; a denser archipelago extends to the upper center; in the lower part, the leaves disperse and allow large passages of reflection to breathe. This rhythm prevents the panoramic format from becoming decorative or repetitive.
The gaze no longer crosses a landscape: it oscillates between the surface covered with flowers and the vertical depth of reflections, without finding a horizon line to fixate on.
Composition, touch and light
What Monet builds behind the impression of snapshot
Three precise elements allow us to understand this composition and the essential difficulties of faithful reproduction.
Vertical reflections under a horizontal surface
The long touches that descend into the water give depth, while the leaves are placed in small horizontal units. Their confrontation organizes the entire panel.
Deliberately asymmetrical groups of flowers
The reds are not distributed regularly. Their rarity and deviations give tension to the large format and lead the eye from one edge to the other.
An open center rather than a central motif
The middle of the panel is less loaded than its upper margins. This breathing must remain visible in the reproduction in order to preserve the immersive scale of the work.
Details and visual documents
Observe the material and the exact version
The additional images show the difficult-to-read passages in the full view and, where it exists, the actual appearance of the work at the museum.
The official view published by the Bührle Collection measures 2400 × 1118 px. The two details each measure 1250 × 930 px and come directly from this specific panel. No files have been enlarged; all three images are in WebP.
Documented benchmarks
Three pieces of information specific to this work
These facts concern this precise version and are verified from the notice of the institution which keeps it.
A panel measuring two meters by four meters twenty-five
The Bührle Foundation keeps this oil on canvas measuring 200 × 425 cm under inventory number 73. A workshop stamp appears on the chassis; the Wildenstein catalog lists it under number 1979.
One of the twenty two-meter panels remaining in Giverny
The foundation's instructions specify that this canvas belongs to a group of twenty panels two meters high which were not selected for the definitive installation of the Water Lilies at the Orangery.
From Monet's workshop to the Bührle collection
After 1926, the painting returned to Michel Monet. Emil Bührle acquired it during the Monet exhibition at the Kunsthaus Zürich in May 1952; his heirs gave it to the foundation in 1960.
Your reproduction
What the painter must preserve
Fidelity here depends on precise relationships between light, touch, depth and color temperature.
- The alternation between vertical touches of reflection and horizontal sheets
- The isolated reds which punctuate the 4.25 meters of the panel
- Less heavy breathing in the center
- Transitions from olive green to turquoise and deep blue
Work sheet
| Title | The Water Lily Basin, green reflections |
|---|---|
| Artist | Claude Monet (1840 -1926) |
| Date | 1920 - 1926 |
| Original technique | Oil on canvas |
| Dimensions | 200 × 425 cm |
| Orientation | Horizontal panoramic |
| Conservation | EG Bührle Collection Foundation, Zurich, Switzerland |
| Inventory | 73 · Wildenstein 1979 |
| Your reproduction | Handmade oil painting on canvas |
Presentation in your interior
A palette designed with the room
This very panoramic composition requires a wide and open wall. Its greens, blues and pinks create an enveloping atmosphere in a living room, dining room or reception area, with continuous and soft lighting across the entire width.
