Water Lily Pond

Claude Monet · 1900

Medium

Oil on canvas

Original size

89.8 × 101 cm (35 3/8 × 39 3/4 in.); Framed: 112.4 × 122.6 × 10.2 cm (44 1/4 × 48 1/4 × 4 in.)

Currently held

Art Institute of Chicago

Movement

Impressionism

Monet's Water Lily Pond (1900) is one of the most quietly absorbing works in the Art Institute of Chicago — a surface of dappled light and reflection that draws the eye inward rather than across. By 1900, Monet had been painting his garden at Giverny obsessively for years, constructing the pond himself and petitioning local authorities for permission to divert a tributary of the Epte river to fill it. His method in this period was layered and atmospheric: building up colour in short, directional strokes that dissolve solid form into shimmering impression, so that water, sky, and lily pads exist less as objects than as registers of light. This particular canvas belongs to the first major series Monet devoted exclusively to the water garden, predating the monumental late panels by nearly two decades and showing a compositional confidence that would define his final chapter. Our hand-painted oil reproduction is made to order by a trained artist working directly from a high-resolution reference, matching the original's palette and impasto character as closely as oil on canvas allows — bringing Monet's extraordinary light into your space in the medium he intended.