À propos de l’œuvre
Meule au soleil, par Claude Monet
Claude Monet · Giverny · 1891 · W1288
Sun grinder W1288hand painted reproduction
A unique grinding wheel, monumental and truncated by the upper edge, rises in pink, mauve and blue light. This oil on canvas measuring 60 × 100 cm, signed Claude Monet 91, is kept at the Kunsthaus Zürich under number 1969/0007 and corresponds to Wildenstein 1288.
Look at the work
The millstone extends beyond the frame and transforms the landscape into a field of color
The gerbier occupies almost the entire height of the canvas. Its blue-purple base anchors itself in the meadow, while its top disappears out of the frame: the agricultural mass becomes a close presence, larger than the landscape that surrounds it.
The sky changes from powder pink to purple, the ground from cold green to blue. Light does not outline the millstone; it circulates in the straw in small touches of ocher, lilac, turquoise and colored white.
In W1288, the subject remains readable, but the proximity of the gerbier and the continuity of the keys already make the eye hesitate between object, light and painted surface.
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 unique framing in the series
The Kunsthaus instructions emphasize that this version is the only one in the group where the gerbier is cut by the upper edge. This truncation gives the pattern an unusual scale.
A light constructed by temperatures
The lit side mixes pink, yellow and cream; the shadow contains blue, green and purple. The volume arises from these temperature differences more than from a brown model.
Le Clos Morin in Giverny
Monet paints the gerbiers installed each year by the farmer Quéruel on the Clos Morin property, to the west of his house. W1288 belongs to the systematic cycle of 1890 -1891.
Reference image
Read this specific version
Only one reference image is used. The exact scan of W1288 is provided in real WebP of 1200 × 723 px, at its available resolution and without artificial enlargement.
The summit deliberately off-camera
The upper cut does not result from cropping the image: it belongs to the original composition and must be preserved in reproduction.
Purples present even in the straw
The colored shadows cross the gerbier and respond to the sky. A uniform yellow would cause the vibrant light of the canvas to lose.
Short, tight, directional keys
The material follows the inclinations of the straw on the millstone, then horizontalizes in the meadow. This difference in gesture separates the volume of the land.
Documented benchmarks
Three pieces of information specific to this work
The Kunsthaus Zürich documents Grindstone in the Sun, oil on canvas from 1891, 60 × 100 cm, inventory 1969/0007 and Wildenstein 1288.
The gerbiers of Clos Morin
Between 1888 and 1891, Monet returned to the gerbiers visible near his house. Part of the cycle was presented by Paul Durand-Ruel in Paris in 1891.
A decisive work for Kandinsky
The Kunsthaus notice reports that Kandinsky saw this millstone in Moscow without immediately identifying the subject, an experience he later associated with the idea of an abstract painting.
Joined the Kunsthaus in 1969
The museum acquired the painting thanks to the Otto Meister legacy. It bears the 1969/0007 inventory and the Claude Monet 91 signature at the bottom right.
Your reproduction
What the painter must preserve
Fidelity here depends on precise relationships between light, touch, depth and color temperature.
- Version 1969/0007, Wildenstein 1288
- The gerbier cut by the upper edge
- The contrast between blue shadows and pink light
- The direction of the keys in the straw and the meadow
Work sheet
| Title | Sun grinder W1288 |
|---|---|
| Artist | Claude Monet (1840 -1926) |
| Date | 1891 |
| Original technique | Oil on canvas |
| Dimensions | 60 × 100 cm |
| Orientation | Horizontal |
| Conservation | Kunsthaus Zurich, Zurich, Switzerland |
| Inventory | 1969/0007 · Wildenstein 1288 |
| Your reproduction | Handmade oil painting on canvas |
Presentation in your interior
A palette designed with the room
The very horizontal format and the combination of mauves, blues and greens are suitable above a sideboard or sofa. A pinkish beige wall, walnut and gray blue textiles extend the light without competing with the pattern.
