À propos de l’œuvre
Champs de coquelicots à Giverny, par Claude Monet
Claude Monet · Giverny · summer 1885 · W997
Poppy field in Giverny W997hand painted reproduction
A field of orange-red poppies descends towards several light houses, then the landscape rises in trees, meadows and hills to the horizon. The cloudy sky occupies the upper third and tempers the intensity of the foreground. Painted in 1885, this oil on canvas measuring 60.01 × 73.03 cm is kept at the Virginia Museum of Fine Arts under number 85.499 and corresponds to Wildenstein 997.
Look at the work
The red of the poppies gives its measure to the entire Giverny valley
The field is painted by a multitude of small red, coral, green and pink touches, tighter in the center and wider at the lower edge. This variation creates a slope without visible lines of perspective and moves the floral pattern towards the viewer.
The houses form a light strip between the field and the tall trees. Beyond that, the greens become bluer and grayer as the valley recedes, while the sky takes on these cold tones in very stretched clouds.
Poppies are almost never drawn flower by flower: their colorful repetition becomes a surface, then this surface becomes the depth of the landscape.
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.
Three large, perfectly readable floors
The red field occupies the foreground, the houses and trees structure the environment, then the blue valley opens in the distance. This order gives the scene an unusual scale for a motif close to the house.
A carefully modulated red-green opposition
The poppies vibrate against the grass, but Monet mixes green in the red zone and warm accents in the meadows. The contrast remains alive without becoming graphic.
A gray sky that protects the intensity of the field
Blue, purple and cream clouds avoid uniform light. Their restraint brings out the flowers while announcing the rapid changes of Norman weather.
Reference image
Read this specific version
The Virginia Museum of Fine Arts' only public image is preserved at its reliable definition of 1,200 × 980 px and then encoded as a real WebP, without artificial enlargement.
Preserve the slope of the field
The keys should tighten towards the houses and widen in the foreground. Uniform density would flatten the view and cause it to lose its downward movement.
Store reds mixed with coral, pink and green
The flowering area is not a continuous red sheet. Its interruptions allow light and grasses to circulate through the poppies.
Keep the distant bluish and not very detailed
The hills and remote fields remain gentle. Strengthening or saturating them would remove the atmospheric perspective specific to W997.
Documented benchmarks
Three pieces of information specific to this work
The Virginia Museum of Fine Arts preserves Field of Poppies, Giverny, oil on canvas from 1885, 60.01 × 73.03 cm, inventory 85,499 and catalog Wildenstein 997.
One of four poppy fields from the summer of 1885
The guide to the Mellon collection specifies that Monet made four variations on this motif during the summer. W997 maintains a broad framing where the village and the valley remain clearly present.
The Press appears in the middle of the landscape
Monet rented this house upon his arrival in 1883 before purchasing it in 1890. The buildings visible in the center place the painting in its daily environment of Giverny.
The gift of Paul and Rachel Mellon
The work belongs to the Collection of Mr. and Mrs. Paul Mellon of the Virginia Museum of Fine Arts, where it bears inventory number 85.499.
Your reproduction
What the painter must preserve
Fidelity here depends on precise relationships between light, touch, depth and color temperature.
- The Wildenstein 997 version
- The sloping orange-red field
- The light houses in the middle
- The blue valley under the cloudy sky
Work sheet
| Title | Poppy field in Giverny W997 |
|---|---|
| Artist | Claude Monet (1840 -1926) |
| Date | 1885 |
| Original technique | Oil on canvas |
| Dimensions | 60.01 × 73.03 cm |
| Orientation | Horizontal |
| Conservation | Virginia Museum of Fine Arts, Richmond, United States |
| Inventory | 85,499 · Wildenstein 997 |
| Your reproduction | Handmade oil painting on canvas |
Presentation in your interior
A palette designed with the room
This horizontal landscape is suitable for a living room, dining room or entrance. A deep green, stone beige or gray blue wall and a natural wood frame make the poppies stand out without artificially accentuating their red.
