Claude Monet – The Green Wave

The Green Wave is a hand-painted oil painting after Monet’s marine subject, which the museum dates to about 1866–67: a single dark green wave rises across almost the whole canvas, a fishing boat with a black hull and thin yellow line heels over on the crest, and the sky is squeezed into a narrow band along the top. The original measures 64.8 x 48.6 cm and is held at the Metropolitan Museum of Art in New York. We paint it in eight sizes or to your own measurement, with a photograph of the finished work sent for approval before dispatch.

The Green Wave – Claude Monet

What is shown?

The canvas lies wide, and the sea takes up almost all of it. The sky gets only a narrow band along the top, pale grey with a violet cast, and in it at the upper left stands the dark silhouette of a larger ship on the horizon. Everything else is water: deep green, in places nearly black, laid in broad slanting strokes that run upward and to the right. A long wave lifts across the middle, and on its crest, left of centre, a fishing boat heels over: the hull is black with a thin yellow line along the upper edge, the bow cuts into white foam, and the large pale grey sail carries registration marks in a dark colour. A smaller sail stands ahead of it, and a tiny dark figure is indicated by the mast. At the upper right, further off, a second boat sails under two grey sails, half hidden behind the crest. The white foam is the only light colour below the sky: a wedge at the bow and a streak trailing to the right edge. The canvas is signed at the lower right. This canvas painting has no story in it — it has the weight of water.

Why so much sea and so little sky?

Because the subject of this canvas is the water and not the scene. The sky gets about a sixth of the height, the horizon is pushed to just under the top edge, and the eye has nowhere to escape to. That is why the boat does not sit on the sea but in it, and with nothing to measure against there is no telling how high the crest has lifted it. The wave is not drawn as a shape either: it is built out of the direction of the strokes, all running slantwise upward, so movement is felt although nothing on the canvas moves. An impressionist painting this is by manner, not by date: the canvas predates the first impressionist exhibition of 1874 by almost a decade. It shows what photography could not then — a mass of water close to, in the moment it rises.

The record for this canvas

The canvas is held at the Metropolitan Museum of Art in New York under inventory number 29.100.111, the technique oil on canvas and the measurement 48.6 x 64.8 cm; the museum gives the height first and we the width — 64.8 cm wide and 48.6 cm high. In Wildenstein’s catalogue of Monet’s paintings it carries the number 73. It came to the museum in 1929 with the bequest of Mrs. H. O. Havemeyer, part of the Havemeyer collection, and the museum assigns it to gallery 818. The dating in the museum record reads “ca. 1866–67” — a span and not a year. The parallel record for this canvas is kept by Wikidata; the museum record is linked in the table above, in the “Held at” row.

Why is the year a span and not a date?

Because the museum that holds the canvas does not record it as a single year. Its entry reads “ca. 1866–67” — a span, and the “ca.” belongs to the museum record, not to our own caution. Elsewhere you will find 1865 stated with no hedge at all; that figure comes from Wikidata and the museum does not confirm it. Where sources disagree we follow the institution that holds the work.

Other Monet sea subjects here

The same boats on a calm sea are in Fishing Boats at Sea. Hauled up the shingle below the chalk cliff they are Fishing Boats on the Beach at Étretat. What the sea does when it strikes rock is Storm on the Belle-Île Coast. And Monet’s best-known harbour at dawn is Impression, Sunrise.

How is our hand-painted version made?

This subject is demanding because of a single colour. The green has to be carried across almost the whole canvas without going flat, so it is built in layers: a cool dark ground first, then broader slanting strokes that set the direction, and only after that the lighter tones on the crest. The white foam comes last, the one place where the paint stands thickly above the surface; laid too early it smears into the green and loses its edge. The black hull and the yellow line beside it are small but carry all the emphasis, so they are saved for the end. A work this size takes several days, and the hand-painted copy you receive is made in exactly that order.

Which size for which wall?

Short answer: 65 x 49 cm is the size closest to the original — 2 mm wider and 4 mm taller; 80 x 60 cm above a chest of drawers, 100 x 75 cm above a sofa, 150 x 110 cm for a large open wall. A painting for living room walls sits in proportion when it takes up about two thirds of the sofa beneath it. The subject lies wide and is dark, so an oil painting reproduction of it wants a pale wall and enough light; in a dark corner it closes up and the wave loses its depth. Because the lower third is the darkest, it works better at eye level or a little above. Impressionist wall art like this also suits a hallway, where you pass it side-on: the foam shows first, the green only once you stop.

How high to hang the painting: put the centre about 150 cm above the floor, or a little higher; hung lower, the dark lower third closes up further.

Made to measure, stretcher and frame

If none of the eight sizes suits, we paint it at the size you set — send the width and height and we will quote a price and a lead time. We keep the ratio so the wave holds its slant. The canvas is stretched over a wooden stretcher with the edges painted, so it does not look unfinished without a frame. A narrow dark moulding or cooler grey-brown wood suits it; a warm gilt frame pulls the green towards brown and the water loses its coldness.

Delivery and guarantee

The finished work travels to sixteen countries in the European Union — Slovenia, Croatia, Austria, Germany, Italy and Hungary among them — wrapped in protective film inside a rigid box. You see a photograph of it before it is sent, and anything wrong on that photograph is put right while the piece is still in the workshop. The largest sizes take longer, because the dark ground has to dry between layers. You will find our other Monet reproduction subjects in the Claude Monet gallery, and we write about painting and choosing a subject on the 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

What year is the original from?

The museum dates it “ca. 1866–67”. That is a span and not a year; since the museum does not record it more precisely, neither do we.

Where is the original?

At the Metropolitan Museum of Art in New York, under inventory number 29.100.111, in gallery 818, since the 1929 bequest of Mrs. H. O. Havemeyer.

Is “La Vague verte” the same work?

It is. That is the French name for the same canvas; the official title in the record is the English one. Our titles in six languages translate that one name, and we sell no other work under it.

What is the dark silhouette at the upper left?

A larger ship, painted in a few strokes and without detail. It is the only sign that anything exists beyond the wave — without it the sea would have no scale.

• Subject. A single dark green wave, a fishing boat on the crest, a second boat upper right and a ship on the horizon.
• Original. Oil on canvas, 64.8 x 48.6 cm, Metropolitan Museum of Art, inv. 29.100.111.
• Ours. Eight sizes or made to measure, from 50 x 40 to 150 x 110 cm; 65 x 49 cm is 2 mm wider and 4 mm taller than the original.
• Worth knowing. The museum dates the work “ca. 1866–67”, not to a single year, so we state no year as a fact.