Woman with a Parasol - Madame Monet and Her Son

Monet painted Woman with a Parasol in 1875, during the years when he was living at Argenteuil, a suburb on the Seine west of Paris. He had moved there in 1871, after the Franco-Prussian War, with his partner Camille Doncieux and their son Jean, who had been born in 1868. The years at Argenteuil were the happiest and most productive of Monet's life: he painted in the garden, by the river, and in the fields around the town, producing the work that would define Impressionism. The painting shows Camille standing on a hill, holding a green parasol against the wind. She wears a white dress and a light shawl, and she looks toward the viewer. Behind her, their son Jean stands on the slope, barely visible in the grass. The hillside is painted in short strokes of green and yellow, with the grass bending in the wind. The sky is filled with clouds, painted in thick, loose strokes of white and blue. The composition is built on a steep diagonal, with Camille at the top of the hill and the viewer at the bottom, looking up. Monet painted Woman with a Parasol in a single session, working outdoors on the hillside. He wrote to a friend that he had been painting 'a figure in the fields, with the wind blowing.' The painting has the fresh, spontaneous quality of a work made quickly, before the light changed. The brushwork is rapid and confident, with the grass, the sky, and the dress painted in broad, sweeping strokes. Areas of bare canvas are visible in the sky, where Monet worked so fast that he did not cover the entire surface. The painting was made in the summer of 1875, a year after the first Impressionist exhibition. Monet was 35 years old and had just begun to sell paintings through his dealer Paul Durand-Ruel. He was painting at a furious rate, producing the landscapes and figure paintings that would be shown in the second Impressionist exhibition in 1876. Woman with a Parasol is one of the most ambitious figure paintings of this period, combining a portrait with a landscape and a study of the effects of wind and light. Camille Doncieux was Monet's partner from 1867 until her death in 1879, at the age of 32. She appears in many of his most important paintings of the 1860s and 1870s, including Women in the Garden (1866) and Impression, Sunrise (1872). She was a model before she met Monet, and she continued to sit for him throughout their relationship. Woman with a Parasol is one of the last paintings Monet made of her before her illness. Oil on canvas, 100 by 81 centimeters. Monet painted the grass in short, horizontal strokes of green, blue, and yellow, with the direction of the brushwork suggesting the wind. The white dress is painted in thick, opaque strokes of white and blue, with the shadows described in cool blue tones. The green parasol is painted in a few quick strokes of green and white. The sky is painted in loose, rapid strokes of white and blue, with areas of bare canvas visible between the strokes. The surface has the fresh, energetic quality of a painting made in a single sitting. The vertical format and cool palette make this print work well in a living room, bedroom, or hallway. The whites, greens, and blues pair with white walls, natural wood, and rooms with a fresh or airy mood. The 16x20 or 18x24 size gives the figure room to read. The painting has a breezy, luminous quality that suits rooms with natural light and a relaxed mood. The painting entered the National Gallery of Art in Washington as part of the Collection of Mr. and Mrs. Paul Mellon. This is a public domain artwork, from the National Gallery of Art, Washington. The image is released under Creative Commons Zero (CC0). We print it on archival matte paper at sizes from 8x10 to 18x24 inches, framed or unframed. The image is printed at full resolution with no cropping.