À propos de l’œuvre
Les Glaçons (1335, par Claude Monet
Claude Monet · 1893 · The Met 29.100.108 · W1335
The W1335 Ice Cubeshand painted reproduction
The Seine covered by ice is reduced to an almost white harmony. Floating plates cross the river, trees and a few houses dissolve in the mist, and the snowy bank leads the gaze to the right. Monet here paints the thaw of winter 1892 -1893 near Giverny.
Look at the work
The thawing of the Seine in a silent white light
The bank in the foreground forms a low diagonal which opens the river. In the center, the ice cubes are indicated by small horizontal touches that are colder or darker. The trees on the other bank appear as faded vertical masses, barely separated from the sky.
The apparent monochromy is based on a wide variety: warm white of the snow, gray blue of the water, pink and purple in the mist, extinct green of the trees. Reproduction must retain these subtle gaps to avoid a flat or simply gray landscape.
In W1335, white does not erase the landscape: it reveals the tiny differences between snow, water, ice and fog.
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.
The exceptional frost of 1892 -1893
The Met recalls that the Seine froze in mid-January before the thaw began on the 23rd. Monet initially complained that the phenomenon was too brief, but ultimately finished more than a dozen views of the ice cubes.
A viewpoint close to Giverny
Monet chooses a location not far from his house. The pattern combines direct observation of a rare meteorological event and its serial method, attentive to the rapid transformations of water and light.
A painting entered the Met in 1929
The work belongs to the HO Havemeyer collection and entered the Metropolitan Museum of Art by bequest from Mrs. HO Havemeyer in 1929. It bears inventory 29.100.108.
Reference image
Read this specific version
Only one image is used: the complete view of W1335, preserved as a real WebP of 2,200 × 1,456 px, without artificial enlargement.
A diagonal of snow in the foreground
The lower bank guides the eye towards the center of the river. Its outline must remain irregular and soft, because the snow gradually merges with the frozen water.
Ivory white, blue gray, mauve and pink
The colors are very desaturated, but never neutral. Blues and pinks give air to the mist; a few gray greens prevent the trees from disappearing completely.
Ice cubes placed in small touches
Fragments of ice are read by brief, horizontal marks. They must remain scattered, without becoming surrounded objects, in order to maintain the sensation of moving water.
Documented benchmarks
Three pieces of information specific to this work
The Metropolitan Museum of Art documents this 1893 oil on canvas under inventory 29.100.108; it corresponds to Wildenstein number 1335.
The Ice Cubes, Wildenstein 1335
The canvas measures 66 × 100.3 cm. Painted in 1893, it belongs to the series devoted to the freezing and then thawing of the Seine during the winter of 1892 -1893.
The Met, inventory 29.100.108
The painting is part of the HO Havemeyer Collection. It was bequeathed to the museum by Mrs. HO Havemeyer in 1929 and is kept in the department of European paintings.
The Seine thaws from January 23
Monet wrote to Durand-Ruel that the thaw had arrived too early for him. Despite this concern, he completed more than a dozen paintings devoted to the phenomenon before the end of February.
Your reproduction
What the painter must preserve
Fidelity here depends on precise relationships between light, touch, depth and color temperature.
- The exact version of the Met, inventory 29.100.108 and W1335
- The original horizontal format of 66 × 100.3 cm
- Colorful shades maintained in whites and grays
- The gentle mist and ice cubes suggested without sharp contours
Work sheet
| Title | The W1335 Ice Cubes |
|---|---|
| Artist | Claude Monet (1840 -1926) |
| Date | 1893 |
| Original technique | Oil on canvas |
| Dimensions | 66 × 100.3 cm |
| Orientation | Horizontal |
| Conservation | The Metropolitan Museum of Art, New York, United States |
| Inventory | 29.100.108 · Wildenstein 1335 |
| Your reproduction | Handmade oil painting on canvas |
Presentation in your interior
A palette designed with the room
This ivory, blue gray and mauve range illuminates a room without imposing a dominant color. It is suitable for a minimalist living room, office or bedroom with pale wood, light stone and natural textiles.
