Corner of the Garden at Montgeron

Painted in 1877 for the Parisian department store magnate Ernest Hoschedé as one of four large decorative panels for his château at Montgeron, this work is one of the most ambitious decorative commissions of Monet's Impressionist period. The garden at Montgeron allowed him to work at a large domestic scale with full freedom to experiment with flickering colour and loose brushwork. After Hoschedé went bankrupt in 1878, Monet's relationship with the family deepened — he eventually married Alice Hoschedé — making these panels works of both artistic and biographical significance. The painting is now in the Hermitage Museum.

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.