Claude Monet 1840 – 1926
Oil on canvas 89 x 92 cm
Bequeathed by Captain S.W. Sykes, 1966
Collections record: PD.9-1966
© The Fitzwilliam Museum, Cambridge
This is one of a series of canvases of poplars that Monet painted in the summer of 1891. Working from his rowing boat on the River Epte, two kilometres upstream of his home at Giverny, he painted the trees in different seasons and under a variety of weather conditions, concentrating on the sinuous patterns formed by the line of trees along the riverbank.
Soon after beginning the series, Monet almost lost his motif, when the poplars were put up for sale by the village. However he came to a financial arrangement with the timber merchant who had bought them, which left the trees standing long enough for him to finish painting them. This is one of only two in the series to be seen from the marsh.
