The Petite Creuse River

1889

Claude Monet began this canvas—one of three of the Petite Creuse—in April 1889 but only returned to it later that spring, by which time the landscape had changed considerably. The oak tree, for example, was sprouting leaves, obscuring the view he had already established. Rather than rework or restart the canvas to depict the current season, Monet hired workers to defoliate the tree so that he could re-create its earlier appearance.

Public domain · CC0
Free to download and reuse. Image courtesy of Art Institute of Chicago.

Artist

Claude Monet (French, 1840–1926)

Date

1889

Medium

Oil on canvas

Dimensions

65.9 × 93.1 cm (25 15/16 × 36 5/8 in.); Framed: 83.2 × 109.9 × 7.3 cm (32 3/4 × 43 1/4 × 2 7/8 in.)

Origin

France

Collection

Art Institute of Chicago

Credit

Potter Palmer Collection