Monet's Water Lily Pond
— still water under a green wooden bridge.
Not only on a wall.
“A small pond in the village of Giverny, about an hour northwest of Paris. Monet bought the meadow in 1893, diverted a tributary of the Epte through it, planted willows and bamboo, and ran a green Japanese bridge over the water. He painted the pond for the last thirty years of his life. About two hundred and fifty canvases. The water lilies open in summer, the wisteria on the bridge in May. The garden closes for winter. Most people come early. The coaches arrive at ten.
Monet's Water Lily Pond, on ceramic.
Each tile is finished by hand in our Knoxville studio. Artwork is slowly infused into the ceramic surface under high heat and pressure, and rests beneath a thin glossy finish. The colour lives in the surface, not on top of it.
Pick any four 4-inch tiles — National Parks you've been to, a Smokies set, the four seasons of one place. $ for a set of , cork-backed, ready to live on the table.
Each tile ships in a kraft box, tied with cream ribbon, with a handwritten note from the studio if you'd like to add one.
Three or five different vistas, hung together — a chapter of places you've been, or want to go.
The place, in three passes.
In the village of Giverny in the Eure department of Normandy, about eighty kilometres northwest of Paris. Claude Monet rented a house here in 1883 and bought it in 1890; in 1893 he bought the meadow across the lane and converted it into the water garden, diverting a small arm of the Epte called the Ru to fill it. The house and gardens passed to his son Michel and fell into disrepair after his death in 1966; Gerald van der Kemp directed a full restoration in the 1970s, and the property has been open to the public since 1980 under the Fondation Claude Monet.
The pond is fed by a diverted arm of the Epte river called the Ru. Monet planted weeping willows along the banks, bamboo at the far end, and irises along the path; he set water lilies on the surface and built a green wooden footbridge over the water in 1895, modelled on Japanese garden prints he collected. He painted the pond for the last thirty years of his life. Roughly two hundred and fifty canvases of water lilies survive, including the vast Grandes Décorations now installed in two oval rooms at the Musée de l'Orangerie in Paris. The wisteria on the bridge was added later and blooms in May.
The Fondation Claude Monet opens the house and gardens from the start of April through the first of November; the property closes for winter. Tulips and wisteria peak in late April and May. Water lilies open from June through September. The rose-clad arches over the long central path of the Clos Normand bloom from June into autumn. The gardens see more than half a million visitors a year. The first hour after opening is the quietest, and timed online entry has reduced midday queues.