Claude Monet – Meadow at Giverny

Meadow at Giverny is Monet’s upright canvas of 1886. A mown meadow rises almost to the top edge and a row of trees burns behind it in autumn colour. The original is held by the Museum of Fine Arts in Boston under accession number 39.670. With us it is made as a hand-painted oil painting on canvas, in eight sizes or to your own measurements.

Meadow at Giverny – Claude Monet

What is on the canvas?

Grass takes up almost the whole surface. The meadow rises toward the upper edge and is mown in broad diagonal swaths running left to right; it is those swaths that carry the eye into depth, because there is neither path nor fence to do it for them. In the foreground the green is densest and scattered with blue and violet flower dabs. Behind stands a row of trees in salmon pink, yellow and brick, and at the right edge a single slender tree rises and is cut by the canvas edge. Of the sky only the top fifth remains, pale and warm, with no pronounced cloud. Not one figure appears in the work.

Where and when was it made?

Monet moved to Giverny in 1883, and this meadow is among the motifs he found immediately outside the house. The work is dated 1886, that is to the first years after the move, when the painter walked the surroundings systematically and picked the views he would return to at different hours and in different seasons. The original measures 81.6 x 92.1 cm and is in the collection of the Museum of Fine Arts in Boston, recorded there under accession number 39.670.

Why the upright format?

An open landscape is almost always painted in landscape format, because that is how breadth shows. Here the canvas stands upright, and that shifts the balance: the sky loses room, the meadow gains it. The viewer is not standing in front of the scene but inside it, as if they had stopped in the grass and looked up toward the trees. That decision is why the scene feels closer and more bodily than a usual panorama, and also why a canvas painting of this subject takes a narrow wall well.

The motif among Monet’s works

A meadow ringed by trees and seen from close up recurs in Monet more than once. Its nearest neighbours are Poppy Field (Giverny), where the same landscape is taken over by red, and Corner of the Garden at Montgeron, where the planting closes the view almost to the top. When Monet puts people into a landscape like this the result is a scene such as The Walk, Woman with a Parasol or Women in the Garden. Here the figure is missing, and its absence is exactly what makes the meadow the principal character. Monet’s own flower garden at Giverny, with rows of purple irises leading towards the house, is The Artist’s Garden at Giverny.

How is our hand-painted copy made?

This is an oil painting reproduction made with a brush and oil colour, not with a printer. The painter works from a high-resolution museum reference so that the swaths of mown grass and the autumn colour of the trees are right, and builds the surface by the same logic as the original: short diagonal strokes in the grass, a denser layer in the crowns. That relief is exactly what a print cannot give you, because there is nothing on it to cast a shadow; light catches the ridges of paint differently in the morning and in the evening. Because everything is done by hand, no two copies are ever quite alike, and each one is its own object.

Stretched on a stretcher, and framed if you chose that, in 15 to 45 days, once you approve the photograph of the finished work.

Which size for which wall?

The original measures 81.6 x 92.1 cm, so our 80 x 90 cm is 1.6 cm narrower and 2.1 cm shorter than the original, and the most natural painting for living room walls above a sofa or a chest of drawers. The format is upright at roughly 9 : 10, so almost square, and that is exactly why it earns its place where there is no room for a wide work. 50 x 55 and 60 x 70 cm belong in a hallway or in a group; 70 x 80 and 80 x 90 cm are the usual choice above a chest of drawers or a desk; 97 x 106, 110 x 120, 130 x 140 and 150 x 170 cm are for tall rooms and large walls where the meadow has room to spread. As impressionist wall art it fills a room without dominating it. Since there are no hard contrasts, it also takes a north wall and soft light well.

Custom size, stretcher and frame

If none of the eight sizes suits your wall, we paint to your measurements and keep the original’s proportions; that is our painting made by order. Every copy is delivered stretched on a wooden stretcher and ready to hang. For the moulding, use our 3D application: it shows every one of our frame profiles on this subject, so you can compare gold, silver, black, white and natural wood before deciding – the application is for choosing the frame only. If you want to see how it will look on your own wall, that is our separate room-placement service.

Delivery and guarantee

Every copy is made to order in our studio, so allow 15 to 45 days depending on the size you choose. We ship it stretched and protected for transport, framed if you chose a frame, across the EU with no customs. Before dispatch you receive a photograph of the finished work to approve, and our returns policy applies to every order. The full range is in the Claude Monet gallery, and the painter’s life is set out in our Claude Monet article.

Frequently asked questions

Where is the original?

At the Museum of Fine Arts in Boston, accession number 39.670.

When was it painted?

In 1886, in the first years after Monet moved to Giverny.

Is anyone shown in it?

No. There are no figures on this canvas; the subject is the meadow itself with the row of trees behind.

When did Monet move to Giverny?

At the end of April 1883 he rented a large house with a garden in Giverny, a village on the Seine west of Paris, with his family. He lived there until his death in 1926, almost 43 years.

• Subject: mown meadow in diagonal swaths, row of autumn-coloured trees, no figures – Giverny, 1886
• Original: 81.6 x 92.1 cm, oil on canvas, Museum of Fine Arts, Boston, accession no. 39.670
• Our version: hand-painted in oil, eight sizes from 50 x 55 to 150 x 170 cm, stretched and framed on request
• Worth knowing: an open landscape on an upright canvas – the sky keeps only the top fifth, all the rest is grass