À propos de l’œuvre
Meule à Giverny, par Claude Monet
Claude Monet · Giverny · 1886 · W1073
Grinding wheel in Giverny W1073hand painted reproduction
A haystack stands in an orange-red field in front of the houses and trees of Giverny. Its compact shape receives greens, yellows and roses which connect it to the meadow, while the bottom hillside fades under a changing sky. Signed and dated Claude Monet 86 lower right, this oil on canvas measuring 60.5 × 81.5 cm is preserved in the Hermitage Museum under the number ̄onds-6563 and corresponds to Wildenstein 1073.
Look at the work
The millstone appears as a volume of light in the middle of a red and green field
Placed slightly to the left of the center, the millstone occupies the foreground without filling the entire composition. Behind it, low roofs form a horizontal band, then trees and hills overlap several depths to the sky.
The field combines coral red, pink, yellow and green in long inclined touches. The millstone uses these colors in a more rounded material; the purple and gray sky, painted more widely, announces a change of weather.
The millstone is not yet the exclusive motif of the major series of 1890: it remains an element of the landscape, connected to the field, farms and hillside.
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 central subject but still inscribed in the village
The houses and trees remain clearly visible. They give the millstone a rural function and distinguish it from the isolated shepherds that Monet would study a few years later.
A shape constructed by curved touches
The strands are not drawn one by one. Yellow, green, pink and blue passages revolve around the volume and suggest both straw and light.
A time that changes above the field
The gray pink sky appears heavy, while a lighter strip opens the horizon. This opposition gives the scene its mixture of calm and movement.
Reference image
Read this specific version
The unique high definition image of 6484 × 4800 px was reduced to 3000 × 2221 px and then encoded as a real WebP, without artificial enlargement.
Keep the wheel low position
It must remain surrounded by the field so that the foreground retains its width and the village remains readable behind.
Preserve reds mixed with green
The meadow does not form a flat area of poppies; the two colors interpenetrate in long touches which reflect the grass and the wind.
Keep the houses very simple
Their light walls and orange roofs serve as a transition. Architectural details that are too sharp would make them more important than the millstone.
Documented benchmarks
Three pieces of information specific to this work
The Hermitage Museum documents Meule à Giverny, oil on canvas from 1886, 60.5 × 81.5 cm, signed and dated lower right, inventory ʻonds-6563 and Wildenstein catalog 1073.
One of Monet's first millstones in Giverny
The table precedes the systematic series of 1890-1891. The millstone remains here an element of a broader view of the village and its fields.
The same hillside painted a year earlier
The Hermitage notice brings the canvas closer to a field of poppies from 1885 showing this slope without the millstone in the foreground.
From the Shchukin collection to the Hermitage
The work belonged to Sergei Shchukin from 1904, joined the Museum of Modern Western Art in Moscow then entered the Hermitage in 1931.
Your reproduction
What the painter must preserve
Fidelity here depends on precise relationships between light, touch, depth and color temperature.
- The Wildenstein 1073 version
- The isolated millstone in the foreground
- The orange-red field crossed with green
- The farms of Giverny under the purple sky
Work sheet
| Title | Grinding wheel in Giverny W1073 |
|---|---|
| Artist | Claude Monet (1840 -1926) |
| Date | 1886 |
| Original technique | Oil on canvas |
| Dimensions | 60.5 × 81.5 cm |
| Orientation | Horizontal |
| Conservation | Hermitage Museum, St. Petersburg, Russia |
| Inventory | ʻilt-6563 · Wildenstein 1073 |
| 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 office. A deep green, powder pink or linen wall and a brown or matte gold frame extend its warm and vegetal accord.
