À propos de l’œuvre
Les Nymphéas, par Claude Monet
Claude Monet · 1904 · MuMa A 486 · W1664
Water Lilies W1664hand painted reproduction
On almost black emerald green water, water lily leaves form horizontal islets punctuated with pink, white and yellow flowers. No sky or bank limits space. This painting offered by Monet to the City of Le Havre is inventory A 486, Wildenstein 1664.
Look at the work
A dark pool where flowers become points of light
The almost square format encloses a fragment of the pond without beginning or end. The leaves gather in irregular bands and leave large areas of dark water between them. This alternation gives the painting its slow and deep rhythm.
The light flowers emerge in small, thick touches. Around them, the greens change from emerald to yellow then to bluish black. The reflective surface does not reproduce any recognizable landscape: it becomes an autonomous pictorial space.
In W1664, depth comes less from perspective than from the gap between black water, green leaves and bright flowers.
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.
MuMa version A 486
The Le Havre Museum documents an oil on canvas from 1904 measuring approximately 89 × 93 cm. Inventory number A 486 and catalog Wildenstein 1664 identify this composition.
A direct donation from Claude Monet
Monet offered the work to the City of Le Havre in 1910, with a Varengeville Cliff and a London Parliament. This gesture links his maturity to the city where he grew up and began painting.
A waterscape exposed in 1909
The painting belongs to the set of forty-eight Water Lilies presented by Durand-Ruel under the title "The Water Lilies, series of water landscapes". The framing without a bank announces a future abstraction.
Reference image
Read this specific version
Only one image is used: the exact scan of W1664 from MuMa Le Havre, converted into a real WebP of 3,000 × 2,867 px.
Uneven horizontal islands
The groups of leaves form neither grid nor crown. Their dark intervals are essential: they give the basin its depth and prevent the composition from becoming decorative in the flat sense.
Emerald, olive and bluish black
The palette must retain its very dark values without losing green shades. Pink, white and yellow flowers remain small flashes, never dominant masses.
Thick flowers, more melted water
The touches of corollas and certain leaves gain relief, while the reflections are more supple and vertical. This contrast makes the surface both tactile and deep.
Documented benchmarks
Three pieces of information specific to this work
MuMa Le Havre keeps this version under inventory A 486; it dates from 1904, measures approximately 89 × 93 cm and corresponds to Wildenstein 1664.
The Water Lilies, Wildenstein 1664
The almost square format and the dominant dark green distinguish this canvas from the bluer or more widely open versions painted during the same period.
MuMa Le Havre, A 486
The work is kept at the André Malraux Museum of Modern Art. Its number A 486 and its direct origin from the artist make its identification particularly secure.
Offered to the City of Le Havre in 1910
Monet himself chose this painting from his recent series. It connects the Giverny laboratory to the Norman town of his youth and his artistic beginnings.
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 MuMa, inventory A 486 and Wildenstein 1664
- The original almost square format of approximately 89 × 93 cm
- The depth of the water emerald and bluish black
- The light flowers preserved as small luminous accents
Work sheet
| Title | Water Lilies W1664 |
|---|---|
| Artist | Claude Monet (1840 -1926) |
| Date | 1904 |
| Original technique | Oil on canvas |
| Dimensions | 89 × 93 cm |
| Orientation | Almost square |
| Conservation | MuMa - André Malraux Museum of Modern Art, Le Havre, France |
| Inventory | A 486 · Wildenstein 1664 |
| Your reproduction | Handmade oil painting on canvas |
Presentation in your interior
A palette designed with the room
This deep palette creates a point of calm in a living room, bedroom or reading space. Walnut, aged brass, ecru linen and gray green walls highlight the flowers without weakening the colored blacks of the water.
