Stacks of Wheat (End of Day, Autumn)

Claude Monet · 1890–91

Medium

Oil on canvas

Original size

65.8 × 101 cm (27 7/8 × 39 3/4 in.); Framed: 90.9 × 125.5 × 123.2 cm (35 3/4 × 49 3/8 × 48 1/2 in.)

Currently held

Art Institute of Chicago

Movement

Impressionism

Stacks of Wheat (End of Day, Autumn) is among the most quietly powerful works in Monet's celebrated Haystacks series — a meditation on fading autumn light rendered in warm golds, bronzes, and dusty purples. Monet painted over thirty canvases of the same haystacks near his home in Giverny between 1890 and 1891, working on multiple paintings simultaneously so he could switch between them as the light shifted. This approach was revolutionary: the subject was almost incidental, a fixed point against which he could study the fleeting effects of atmosphere and season. The result is less a painting of haystacks than a painting of light itself, with the stacked wheat dissolving into their surroundings through loose, layered brushwork. When twenty-five works from the series were exhibited together in Paris in 1891, they sold out within days — a commercial and critical triumph that established Monet's reputation in France and abroad. This hand-painted oil reproduction faithfully recreates the textured impasto surface and luminous colour palette of the original held at the Art Institute of Chicago, bringing the warmth and stillness of that October light directly into your home.