Water Lilies (Agapanthus)c. 1915–26 · Study 1960.81

Context from the museum

A skilled horticulturalist as well as an artist, Claude Monet spent the last 30 years of his life painting the private garden he designed and helped cultivate at his home in Giverny in northern France. The resultant canvases are notable for their varied motifs, formats, and sizes. Monumental in scale, this rendering of his water lily pond focuses on the momentary effects of sunlight as it both penetrates and reflects off its shimmering surface. By zeroing in on the water and omitting its horizon and surrounding banks, Monet infers a limitless expanse—a perception amplified by the painting’s vast horizontal format that fills the viewer’s field of vision.

Museum description reproduced from its CC0 open-access record. Read the original catalog entry.

A detail to notice

Water lilies were a recurring theme in Monet's work; he painted around 250 water lily compositions.

Observation supplied by the Cleveland Museum of Art.

Read the dimensions before the image

The selected unframed measurement for Water Lilies (Agapanthus) is 425.6 cm wide and 201.3 cm high, equivalent to approximately 167.6 × 79.3 inches. Dividing width by height gives a format ratio of 2.11:1. The rectangular bounding area is 8.57 square meters; it describes the measured footprint, not the amount of paint or the monetary value.

On an illustrative 300 cm wall, the recorded width occupies 141.9% of the span before adding a frame. That exceeds the example wall width, so a smaller reference wall would not reproduce the recorded scale. These are calculations by Physical Art For Crypto using museum measurements. They are not the museum’s display recommendations.

Questions to bring to your own collection

With Water Lilies (Agapanthus) in view, identify one feature you can point to, then distinguish what the museum records from your personal response. Keep its medium, oil on canvas, in your notes when comparing contemporary works.

• Which part of this horizontal composition catches your eye first?
• Would a 425.6 cm width still suit the space after allowing for furniture and a frame?
• What surface detail would you need to see in person or in a close photograph?