L'Enfant à la tasse

L'Enfant à la tasse (1868) depicts a young child—likely Jean Monet, his son born in 1867—drinking from a cup, a domestic subject that occupies a small but significant place alongside Monet's ambitious landscape and figure subjects of the late 1860s. Painted during an extremely difficult period financially—Monet and Camille were surviving on the charity of Bazille and Gaudibert—this intimate observation of childhood has an emotional directness that contrasts with the large-scale ambitions of The Luncheon and Women in the Garden from the same period. The location of this painting is currently unconfirmed.

The child's figure is painted with warm, softly modeled flesh tones. The cup and face are the compositional focus, rendered with careful attention to light. Monet keeps the background loosely stated, allowing the figure to emerge naturally without mechanical academic finish.