À propos de l’œuvre
L'arbre en boule, Argenteuil, par Claude Monet
Claude Monet · Argenteuil from Le Petit Gennevilliers · Museum Barberini
The Ball Tree, Argenteuil W397hand painted reproduction
From the opposite bank of the Seine, Monet looks out at the lower end of the Argenteuil promenade. A white villa, several trees and their reflections line up behind a large expanse of water. The rounded foliage which gives its title to the painting punctuates a calm landscape where the evening light gradually erases the limits.
Look at the work
The Seine, the promenade and the sky pile up into calm strips
The nearby bank is lined with reeds and shrubs that overflow from the lower corners. Beyond the water, the white villa is placed to the left of the center; the small rounded tree responds further to the right, before the almost black mass of the large trees.
The pearl gray sky bears thin pink and yellow clouds. These colors are repeated on the Seine, but the vertical reflections of the trees interrupt them. The water thus becomes a second composition, more fragmented and darker than the upper landscape.
Monet simplifies the view in almost parallel areas, then uses reflections to move shapes from one strip to another.
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 clear villa as a measure of space
Its white walls and regular windows give the scale of the bank. The building remains small enough not to transform the landscape into an architectural view.
The rounded tree as punctuation
Its almost circular crown detaches from the sky and breaks the general horizontality. Its reflection, more blurred, extends this marker in the middle of the water.
Print-inspired tapes
The Museum Barberini brings this organization into parallel zones of Japanese prints admired by Monet. Depth is born without spectacular convergence.
Reference image
Read this specific version
The unique reference corresponds to the MB-Mon-36 inventory of the Museum Barberini, Wildenstein version 397. The available file measures 1,920 × 1,434 px; it was preserved without enlargement and encoded in WebP.
The house is not in the center
Shifted to the left, it balances the heavy foliage on the right and keeps an open area of sky in the middle.
The sky contains very discreet roses
The salmon and cream touches remain fine. They warm up the grays without producing a theatrical sunset.
The reeds advance in front of the mirror
Their sharper drawing in the foreground breaks the reflections and establishes a distance between the viewer and the Argenteuil bank.
Documented benchmarks
Three pieces of information specific to this work
Dated 1876, this oil on canvas measuring 60.3 × 80.2 cm is kept at the Museum Barberini under the MB-Mon-36 inventory and classified Wildenstein 397.
Argenteuil seen from Le Petit Gennevilliers
The museum notice places Monet on the other bank of the Seine, facing the lower end of the promenade. This view explains the width given to the water.
A resort town without bridges or sailboats
Contrary to many views of Argenteuil, the composition discards the patterns of bridges and boats. The villas and gardens rather bear witness to the prosperity of the Parisian bourgeoisie who came to spend the summer by the river.
Claude Monet lower left
The painting is signed in the vegetation in the foreground. The museum presents it today in the Hasso Plattner Collection.
Your reproduction
What the painter must preserve
Fidelity here depends on precise relationships between light, touch, depth and color temperature.
- Respect the horizontal bands of shore, water and sky.
- Keep the white villa small and slightly off-center.
- Build the round crown by several dark greens and blues.
- Repeat sky roses in water with restraint.
Work sheet
| Title | The Ball Tree, Argenteuil W397 |
|---|---|
| Artist | Claude Monet (1840 -1926) |
| Date | 1876 |
| Original technique | Oil on canvas |
| Dimensions | 60.3 × 80.2 cm |
| Orientation | Horizontal |
| Conservation | Museum Barberini, Potsdam, Germany |
| Inventory | MB-Mon-36 · Wildenstein 397 |
| Your reproduction | Handmade oil painting on canvas |
Presentation in your interior
A palette designed with the room
Its bluish grays, deep greens and pale pinks are suitable for a quiet bedroom, office or living room. A warm gray, smoky oak or dark green setting highlights the shore without hardening the atmosphere.
