Water Lily Pond

Claude Monet · 1917–19

Medium

Oil on canvas

Original size

130.2 × 201.9 cm (51 1/2 × 79 1/2 in.); Framed: 147.4 × 218.5 × 9.9 cm (58 × 86 × 3 7/8 in.)

Currently held

Art Institute of Chicago

Movement

Impressionism

Painted in the final decade of Monet's life, this shimmering canvas from 1917–19 captures the lily pond at Giverny in a state of near-dissolution, where water, sky, and vegetation blur into a continuous field of colour and light. By this period, Monet was working on a monumental scale, immersed in what would become his defining obsession: the surface of water as a mirror for atmosphere and time. His brushwork had grown looser and more gestural, laying down thick, interlocking strokes that describe form without ever quite stating it. The result sits at the threshold between representation and abstraction in a way that felt radical in its day and still feels alive now. Monet was suffering from cataracts during the creation of these late works, and scholars have noted that the warmer, more diffuse palette of paintings from this period reflects his altered perception — a condition he feared would end his career but may have deepened his art instead. This hand-painted oil reproduction is executed on canvas using traditional oil pigments, preserving the layered texture and chromatic depth that a print simply cannot replicate — the way light catches the impasto and the colours shift depending on where you stand.