Claude Monet – Poppies near Argenteuil

Poppies near Argenteuil is a hand-painted oil reproduction of a summer motif by Monet: a slope strewn with red poppies, two figures with a blue parasol in the foreground and a second pair on the ridge, under a high clouded sky.

Poppies near Argenteuil – Claude Monet

What is on the canvas

The canvas is landscape. At the left and in the foreground a slope strewn with hundreds
of red poppies falls away, painted as short, irregular flecks; they are densest at the
left and thin out towards the right. Below and right of centre a woman in a grey-blue dress
and a straw hat walks towards the viewer, a blue-green parasol over her shoulder. Lower
beside her a child in a straw hat looks out above the grass, holding a bunch of poppies. At the
upper left, on the lip of the slope, the same motif repeats in miniature: a darker-dressed figure
with a pale headdress and a second child beside her. A taller tree with a pale trunk stands at the
centre, and a row of low round crowns runs off to the right; among them a house with a brown-red
roof. The right half is open grey-green meadow, almost empty. The upper third is filled with white
and cream cumulus with blue gaps. The canvas is signed at the lower left.

The same scene twice

The most considered move in this scene is the repetition: the woman with the child in front and
the woman with the child behind are the same figure at two distances. In front they are painted
with detail — face, hat, parasol — behind, only as two flecks. That is what gives the slope a depth
it does not have as drawing: distance is measured by how much detail has gone. The same holds for
the poppies. In front they stand singly, with empty grass between them; towards the horizon they
close into a continuous red field. This oil on canvas reproduction shows how Monet makes both
nearness and distance out of one colour.

The subject among Monet’s works — and what is not established about this original

The same flower motif without figures is
Poppy Field (Giverny), the
open meadow without flowers Meadow
at Giverny. The figure in the open under a large sky is
Woman with a Parasol.
How flowers become a band of colour at the other end of Europe is shown by
Field of Tulips in Holland.

What we deliberately do not state here: Monet painted this motif in more than
one version, so which of them is the original behind this particular reproduction is not
established. You will therefore find no year of execution, no collection name and no accession
number on this page. We say what is visible on the canvas and nothing beyond it.

How it works on the wall

The format is landscape, in a ratio of about 5 : 4. Because the subject is light and spread over
the whole surface, it takes almost any hanging height; at eye level it does best. Nine sizes are
offered. 50 x 40 cm suits a hallway or a kitchen. 65 x 50 cm is exactly the size of the
original and is offered. 70 x 50 cm and 80 x 60 cm are the usual choices above a
sideboard, 90 x 70 cm and 100 x 80 cm above a sofa. 110 x 90 cm, 130 x 100 cm and 150 x 120 cm are
meant for large walls, where the single poppy flecks can be told apart. Because the work is light
and warm, hand-painted canvas art of this kind brightens even a wall in the shaded part of a
room.

Hand-painted, not printed

This fine art reproduction is made with a brush, not a printer. A print lays the colour in an
evenly thin film, so poppies and grass come out equally smooth. Applied by hand, every poppy is its
own short thick stroke standing above the canvas, while the grass is drawn thin and soft. Light is
returned differently by those two surfaces, so the red flecks come alive as you walk past while the
ground stays quiet — a print cannot do that, because there everything is the same thickness.
Because it is handwork, every copy differs a little.

Custom sizes, frame, and the view on your own wall

If none of the nine sizes suits your room, we paint to the size you set yourself, keeping the
ratio of the sides so the slope keeps its fall. A 3D application is available for the frame —
it is for frame selection only and does not place the work in your room. If you
want to see how it will look on your own wall, that is the separate visualisation service. The two
do not overlap, so we do not mix them.

Ordering, lead time and approval before dispatch

The work is painted to order, so the lead time is 15 to 45 days, depending on
the size chosen and how busy the studio is. Before anything is sent we send you a photograph of the
finished piece for approval; only once you confirm do we stretch the canvas on a wooden frame and
prepare it for hanging. As wall decor it belongs in a living space, where there is often daylight.
The whole range, including further reproductions on canvas and famous paintings on canvas, is in
the Claude Monet gallery.

• Subject: a slope of red poppies, a woman with a blue parasol and a child in front, the same pair smaller on the ridge.
• Technique: oil on canvas; the poppies in short thick flecks, the grass in thin soft strokes.
• Sizes: landscape format 5 : 4, nine sizes from 50 x 40 cm to 150 x 120 cm; 65 x 50 cm is the size of the original.
• Worth knowing: the woman with the child appears twice — in front with detail, behind as no more than two flecks.