Claude Monet – The Water Lilies – Green Reflections

The Water Lilies – Green Reflections is a hand-painted reproduction of one of the great wall panels from Monet’s Nymphéas cycle: a low, eight-and-a-half-metre slice of the pond at Giverny, with no sky, bank or horizon, where the pads gather at both ends and the middle stays open, dark water. The original measures 850 x 200 cm, two oil panels joined on canvas glued to the wall, dated by the museum between 1914 and 1926 and held under inventory number INV 20102 at the musée de l’Orangerie in Paris. We paint it in six sizes or to your own measurement, with a photograph of the finished work sent for approval before dispatch.

The Water Lilies – Green Reflections – Claude Monet

What is on the canvas?

The canvas is extraordinarily long and low: the width is roughly four and a half times the height. All that is shown is the water surface, from above and slightly at an angle. Along the left edge the pads thicken into a dark mass, run on through the lower band, and gather again at the right into a broad island. Between them lies a large, almost empty expanse of open water, darkest in the upper half where it passes into a bluish black. Down the left third fall long vertical bands of colder blue — reflections of the willows on the bank, painted so the bank itself never appears. The blossoms are scattered one by one, white, pale pink and a few yellow, each a short thick touch above the weave.

Why is the canvas so wide?

Because it was never meant as an ornament on a wall, but as the wall itself. The museum record is precise: two oil panels joined side by side, on canvas glued to the wall. Monet painted panels like these for a room that had still to be built, and in 1922 gave them to the French state. Eight and a half metres is a measurement of architecture, not of an easel. The ratio of the sides therefore has to be kept: it is the length that makes a viewer read the scene slowly from end to end. Even our largest size at 350 cm stays under half the original length.

What is missing from this canvas?

No sky, no horizon, no bank, no boat, no bridge and no person. The museum subject index lists landscape, flower, water lily, water, garden, vegetation, pond and reflection — not one figure among them. A canvas painting that takes away every point of reference leaves nothing to look at but the surface. The willow reflections are the only trace of a world outside the water, yet are painted as part of it. What would be background is pressed into the same plane as the foreground, which is why the whole reads like a look straight down rather than a landscape.

Details from the museum record

The work is recorded at the Orangerie under inventory number INV 20102. In the inventory it carries the title “Reflets verts”, with “Les Nymphéas” as a further title, and the measurements appear as height 200 and length 850 cm; in our table the width comes first. The materials are given as oil paint, wood and canvas, the place depicted as Giverny. We give no year: the museum writes the span “between 1914 and 1926”, and the Wikidata date is precise only to a century, its bounding values being 1914 and 1926. We print the span the institution asserts, not a year nobody asserts.

The work’s journey from the painter to the Orangerie

The museum record lists three stations and no more. In 1922 the work passed to the French state as a gift from the painter, by a deed dated 12 April 1922 and a decree of approval dated 14 June. The musée du Luxembourg in Paris follows. In 1927 the work moved to the musée de l’Orangerie, where it remains; the acquisition is entered as a donation. What is missing between those stations — when the panels left the studio, and where they were meanwhile — the record does not say, and so neither do we.

The motif among the Monet works we sell

From the same cycle and the same Paris collection comes The Water Lilies – Clear Morning with Willows; the museum records it under inventory number INV 20106, it measures 1275 x 200 cm and is made of three joined panels, as its own museum record shows. The same pond in a square format with denser foliage appears in Water Lilies. The violet version with vertical willow reflections is Blue Water Lilies. When architecture enters the scene the result is The Water Lily Pond (Japanese Bridge). Each is an impressionist painting we paint by hand.

How is our hand-painted version made?

In the first photograph the surface is close up: the paint stands above the weave, and the blossoms are visibly thicker than the water around them. That is what a print cannot do: it lays every colour down in an equally thin film. In the second photograph the same work hangs in a dining corner, at an angle from the left, the frame running away into depth: a wide dark frame with a narrow gold slip, a wall clock beside it, a lit glass cabinet. In the third photograph the same hang is taken head-on across the dining table, two pendant lamps in front of the canvas — one work, two viewpoints, and only together do they show how a piece this long sits on a wall. All three show what you receive: a canvas painted by hand and photographed before dispatch.

The fifty-second clip on this page shows the finished, framed canvas of this motif on a wooden easel in our workshop, among the frame samples.

Which size for which wall?

Short answer: 216 x 50 cm over a three-seater, 260 x 60 cm over a wider sofa, 130 x 30 cm in a hallway. Six sizes are available: 130 x 30 cm and 175 x 40 cm are horizontal accents over a narrow bed or a passage; 216 x 50 cm and 260 x 60 cm the usual measurements over a seating group; 305 x 70 cm and 350 x 80 cm for the large empty wall. This motif asks for a lower hang than usual, and its dark cool palette wants a light wall and warm lighting.

How high to hang the painting: the centre a little lower than the usual 150 cm, roughly at the eye level of a seated person. The scene looks down onto the water.

Custom sizes, stretcher bar and frame

If none of the six sizes suits your room, we paint to the measurement you set — send the width and height and we will quote a price and a lead time. A custom size keeps the ratio of the sides, which matters more here than in any format: let the height grow by a few centimetres and the scene stops working as a band of water. The canvas is stretched on a wooden stretcher bar and the edges are painted, so it does not look unfinished unframed. A narrow dark moulding suits an oil painting reproduction of this kind, or a dark green with a gold inner slip.

Delivery and guarantee

The work travels to sixteen countries of the European Union — among them Slovenia, Croatia, Austria, Germany, Italy and Hungary — wrapped in protective film and firmly packed, in a crate of the right length for the largest sizes. The making time is 15 to 45 days. You receive a photograph of the finished hand-painted oil painting before dispatch: if something is not right, we correct it while the work is still in the workshop. Other motifs by Monet are in the Claude Monet gallery, and we write about painting on our blog.

If the painting is a gift and you are unsure of the size, there is a gift voucher: the recipient chooses the size and the subject.

Frequently asked questions

Where is the original?

At the musée de l’Orangerie in Paris, inventory number INV 20102. Because the canvas is glued to the wall, it is not moved like a work on an easel.

Are there any people in it?

There are not. The museum’s subject index lists landscape, flower, water lily, water, garden, vegetation, pond and reflection — no person and no building.

What does the work say in one sentence?

That Monet cut eight and a half metres of water out of the pond and removed everything to measure it against.

Is the original for sale, and what is it worth?

It is not for sale. It has been state property since 1922, so there is no market price we could quote.

• Subject. An eight-and-a-half-metre slice of the pond at Giverny: foliage at both ends, open dark water in the middle, vertical willow reflections at the left.
• Original. Oil on canvas, two joined panels, 850 x 200 cm, between 1914 and 1926, musée de l’Orangerie, inv. INV 20102.
• Ours. Six sizes or made to measure, from 130 x 30 to 350 x 80 cm; the largest is still shorter than half the original.
• Worth knowing. The museum gives no year — it writes a span between 1914 and 1926, and that span is what we print.