À propos de l’œuvre
Les rouges, par Claude Monet
Claude Monet · Two fish on a cloth circa 1870 · Harvard Art Museums
Red mullet W140hand painted reproduction
Two red mullet are placed on a crumpled white cloth, seen from quite a height and framed as closely as possible. Their pinks, oranges and silvery greens stand out from a fabric painted in large cream, gray and white planes. Monet gives a very simple subject the tension of a modern composition: the fish are neither aligned nor decorated, but suspended between direct observation and imminent preparation.
Look at the work
Two colored diagonals animate a white linen
The top fish is oriented to the right, its head raised by a fold of fabric. The bottom one points in the opposite direction and advances towards the left edge. The offset of the bodies and tails forms a flexible X in the center of the canvas, without rigid symmetry.
White linen is an architecture in its own right. Its folds rise behind the fish, hollow out into gray shadows then fall onto an olive green background. The dark border of the canvas and the red-brown signature at the bottom right close this very close framing.
White is not an empty background: its folds carry fish, direct their diagonals and circulate light around their scales.
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.
A high and deliberately tight framing
The viewer looks almost vertically. Some of the laundry comes out of the frame, making it appear like a scene captured on a table rather than a ceremonial arrangement.
Bodies painted in juxtaposed colors
Salmon pink, orange, gray green and white describe the volumes without detailed drawing of each scale. The eyes and gills provide only a few precise accents.
A contrast between living material and fabric
Fish use short, changing, shiny touches. The linen is constructed by larger gray-white gestures that emphasize its weight and folds.
Reference image
Read this specific version
The unique reference corresponds to object 231940 from Harvard Art Museums. The 2400 × 1632 px file retained its native resolution, without enlargement, then was converted to WebP.
Two opposite reading directions
The heads and tails respond diagonally. This opposition keeps the gaze in the center despite the very small space around the fish.
Reds tempered by olive green
The warm color of red mullet is surrounded by broken whites and a gray green background. This ratio makes the flesh luminous without saturating it.
Frank brushstrokes on the laundry
The shadows of the folds are laid in long gray and green bands. They must remain visible to conserve the energy of the small canvas.
Documented benchmarks
Three pieces of information specific to this work
This still life painted around 1870 measures 31.1 × 46 cm. It is kept at the Harvard Art Museums under the 1925.16 inventory and classified Wildenstein 140.
Two common fish before preparation
The Harvard notice underlines the everyday nature of the motif and the close point of view. Nothing yet separates pictorial contemplation from the domestic gesture that will follow.
Still life experiences of the 1870s
Monet then became interested in objects, flowers and food. Harvard brings this research closer to Delacroix, Manet's reinterpretations and the renewed attention to Chardin.
A donation to the Fogg Museum in 1925
After Edmond Maître, Durand-Ruel and Doctor Albert C. Barnes, the painting returned to Durand-Ruel. The Friends of the Fogg Art Museum offered it to the museum in 1925.
Your reproduction
What the painter must preserve
Fidelity here depends on precise relationships between light, touch, depth and color temperature.
- Respect the opposite orientation of the two fish and the gap between their bodies.
- Store pinks, oranges and silvery greens without transforming the flesh into uniform red.
- Make the folds of the laundry with large gray-white gestures and not with rigid contours.
- Preserve the olive background, dark border and signature as limits of the composition.
Work sheet
| Title | Red mullet W140 |
|---|---|
| Artist | Claude Monet (1840 -1926) |
| Date | Around 1870 |
| Original technique | Oil on canvas |
| Dimensions | 31.1 × 46 cm |
| Orientation | Horizontal |
| Conservation | Harvard Art Museums /Fogg Museum, Cambridge, United States |
| Inventory | 1925.16 · Wildenstein 140 |
| Your reproduction | Handmade oil painting on canvas |
Presentation in your interior
A palette designed with the room
This small still life, bright and graphic, finds its place in a kitchen, a dining room or a wall composition. A dark, olive or fine gold wood frame highlights its broken reds and whites.
