Claude Monet – Springtime

Springtime is Monet’s canvas of 1872: a young woman in a pale pink dress and a white bonnet sitting in the grass under the trees, reading, while sunlight falls through the leaves in bright patches across her dress and the lawn. The original is in the Walters Art Museum in Baltimore. We make it as a hand-painted reproduction in oil on canvas, in six sizes or to your own measurement, with a photograph of the finished work sent for approval before dispatch.

Springtime – Claude Monet

What is shown?

A spring afternoon in a garden. A young woman sits in the long grass in the shade of the trees, her pale pink dress spread around her, a white bonnet with ribbons on her head, a book open in her lap. Behind her the leaves form a deep green wall; to the right the garden opens onto a sunlit lawn. Light comes through the leaves and lands on her dress in small pale spots, and in the foreground the grass is full of tiny white and yellow flowers.

Who is the woman?

The museum does not name her. In the early 1870s Monet often painted his own garden with his wife Camille and their son Jean in it, and when this canvas was shown in 1876 it carried a plain title, Woman Reading. The figure is a reason to paint the light, not a portrait: we see her bent over her book, absorbed and quiet.

Why does this painting matter?

Here Monet was less interested in a likeness than in how separate, unblended dabs of colour could suggest bright sunlight filtered through leaves. That is the whole subject of the canvas, and it is the method the Impressionists became known for. Monet showed it at the Second Impressionist Exhibition in Paris in 1876.

Light through the leaves

Look at the dress: it is not painted in one pink. Where the sun reaches it, there are small strokes of almost pure white; in the shadow, the same fabric turns lilac and grey-blue. The grass works the same way, dark green under the trees and pale yellow-green where the light falls. Nothing is outlined, and from a step back the dabs join into a garden in full spring sun.

Monet at Argenteuil

In late December 1871 Monet moved to Argenteuil, a small town on the Seine north-west of Paris, linked to the city by rail. He painted the town, the river and his garden there for several years. A field of red flowers with a woman and a child is Poppies near Argenteuil; a walk through the fields outside the town is The Promenade near Argenteuil; and an earlier, much larger garden scene with four women in light dresses is Women in the Garden.

How is our hand-painted version made?

The painter begins with the dark greens of the leaves and the shadow under the trees, because the light only shows against them. Then the lawn, the flowers in the grass and the pink of the dress, each laid as a short separate stroke. The last touches are the spots of sunlight on the dress and the bonnet: small, thick and almost white. If they are blended in, the sun disappears from the garden, so they stay as separate marks.

Every piece is a hand-painted copy in oil on canvas, made for your order. An impressionist painting lives on its visible brushwork, so we do not smooth it away: the strokes stand slightly above the surface and catch the light, which a printed oil painting reproduction cannot do.

Which size for which wall?

Short answer: 90 x 70 cm above a sofa or sideboard, 60 x 50 cm for a hallway or a smaller wall, and 150 x 120 cm for a large empty wall. A painting for the living room should take up about two thirds of the width of the furniture below it. All six sizes, from 60 x 50 to 150 x 120 cm, follow the format of the original.

How high to hang the painting: put the centre of the canvas about 150 cm above the floor; above a sofa, leave 20 to 30 cm between the back and the lower edge.

Made to measure, stretcher and frame

If none of the sizes suits, we paint to measure — send the width and the height and we will quote a price and a lead time. The original measures 65.5 x 50 cm, a ratio of about 1.31 : 1. Every canvas painting we make is stretched over a wooden stretcher with painted edges, so it does not look unfinished without a frame. A light natural wood or a narrow white moulding keeps the spring freshness; a fine pale gold frame also suits it and picks up the sunlit grass.

Delivery and guarantee

We ship to the United Kingdom, Ireland and across the EU, wrapped in protective film and packed in a rigid box. Before dispatch we send you a photograph of the finished work; if something on it is not right, we correct it while the canvas is still in our workshop. Every other Monet reproduction we paint is in the Claude Monet gallery, and we write about the painter and about choosing a subject on our blog.

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

Frequently asked questions

Where is the original?

In the Walters Art Museum in Baltimore, under inventory number 37.11. The work is recorded in Wikidata, and the photograph we paint from is on Wikimedia Commons.

What year is it from?

From 1872. Monet painted other spring canvases too, among them Springtime at Giverny of 1886; this one is the earlier painting of a woman reading in the garden at Argenteuil.

What does Springtime mean?

It tells no story. It is a study of light: sunshine broken by leaves into small bright patches on a dress, a book and the grass. The woman reading gives the light a quiet place to fall.

Who is the woman reading?

The museum does not name her. Monet often painted his wife Camille in his garden in these years, but when the canvas was first shown, in 1876, it was called simply Woman Reading.

• Painted by hand. Oil on canvas, no print and no machine application.
• Six sizes or made to measure. From 60 x 50 to 150 x 120 cm, all in the format of the original.
• A photograph before dispatch. You see the finished work before it leaves the workshop.
• About the original. Year, size and inventory number as the Walters Art Museum records them.