Le bassin aux nymphéas

French artist Claude Monet painted this Le bassin aux nymphéas in 1919, one of four highly finished monumental renderings from his late water lily period. The canvas, measuring 100 by 300 cm, presents an endless expanse of water with floating lily pads and sky reflections, eliminating any clear foreground or background.

Monet created his water garden at Giverny specifically as a painting subject, rerouting a river to establish the pond and cultivating hybrid water lily varieties for varied colors. While his 1899 series featured the Japanese bridge as compositional anchor, these later works dispense with the bridge entirely, focusing solely on water, reflections, and lilies in an almost abstract approach.

The series ultimately culminated in the Grandes Décorations, 22 monumental canvases now at the Musée de l'Orangerie. This 1919 canvas sold at Christie's London in June 2008 for $80.5 million, setting a world record for Monet and the highest price ever achieved by Christie's in Europe at that time.