Corner of the Garden at Montgeron

Corner of the Garden at Montgeron from 1877 at the Hermitage Museum is among the most ambitious decorative commissions of Monet's Impressionist period — one of four large panels painted at the Château de Rottembourg for the collection of Ernest Hoschedé, the Paris department store owner who was then one of the most enthusiastic buyers of avant-garde French painting. The garden corner subject gave Monet freedom to work at a large scale with full atmospheric ambition, and the result shows his Impressionist technique at its most confident and assured in the handling of dappled garden light. The panels were among the showpieces of Hoschedé's collection when the bankruptcy of 1878 forced their dispersal — the liquidation sale in which his entire Impressionist collection went for dramatically reduced prices was a watershed moment in the economics of avant-garde art in France. The subsequent deepening of the Monet-Hoschedé relationship — the two families living together at Vétheuil, Monet eventually marrying Alice after Ernest's death — makes the Montgeron commission paintings works of profound biographical resonance. The Hermitage's acquisition placed this canvas in the same institution as other major Monet works from its unparalleled French Impressionist collection.

Working at a larger scale than most of his easel paintings from this period, Monet builds surface texture through vigorous, varied brushstrokes that read as separate marks at close range but coalesce into foliage and reflective water from a distance. The greens range from cool grey-green to warm yellow-olive, activating the surface with chromatic energy.