Water Lilies and Japanese Bridge 1899 By Claude Monet

What Is Water Lilies and Japanese Bridge (1899) by Claude Monet?

Water Lilies and Japanese Bridge (1899) is a late Impressionist oil painting by Claude Monet, created at his garden in Giverny, France. The painting depicts Monet’s Japanese-style footbridge arching over his lily pond and forms part of his celebrated Nymphéas (Water Lilies) series.

Painted in oil on canvas and measuring 32 × 40 inches (81.3 × 101.6 cm), the vertically oriented composition abandons traditional perspective, immersing the viewer in a reflective surface of lilies, foliage, and sky.

Today, the painting is housed at the National Gallery of Art, one of the most important collections of French Impressionism outside Europe.

What Inspired Monet’s Water Lilies Series?

Claude Monet began the Water Lilies (Nymphéas) series after settling in Giverny in 1883. Over the following decades, he transformed his property into a carefully engineered water garden designed specifically as a living studio for painting.

At Giverny, Monet:

• Diverted water from the Epte River to expand his pond
• Carefully landscaped the grounds with willows, irises, and bamboo
• Planted rare and imported water lilies
• Built a Japanese-style arched wooden bridge
• Collected more than 230 Japanese ukiyo-e prints

Although Monet never visited Japan, the European fascination with Japanese art known as Japonisme profoundly shaped his visual language. Influenced by artists such as Hokusai and Hiroshige, Monet incorporated:

• Flattened pictorial space
• Cropped, asymmetrical compositions
• Decorative surface patterning
• The removal of a traditional horizon line

In 1899, Monet began concentrating specifically on the Japanese bridge motif. The first group of these paintings was exhibited at the Paris gallery of dealer Paul Durand-Ruel in 1900, marking a decisive phase in his late career.

Between 1899 and his death in 1926, Monet produced more than 250 Water Lilies paintings. The series culminated in the monumental oval panels permanently installed at the Musée de l'Orangerie in Paris — widely regarded as one of the earliest immersive environments in modern art.

Is Water Lilies and Japanese Bridge an Impressionist Painting?

Water Lilies and Japanese Bridge reflects the core principles of late Impressionism while simultaneously pushing beyond them.

This work represents Monet’s late Impressionist period, when he moved beyond traditional landscape structure toward immersive surface composition.

• The painting demonstrates:
• Visible, broken brushwork
• Emphasis on shifting light and atmosphere
• Direct observation of nature
• A contemporary, modern subject

However, unlike Monet’s earlier panoramic landscapes, the 1899 Japanese Bridge works compress space into an enclosed visual field. The absence of horizon and depth foreshadows abstraction, signaling a major evolution in his late artistic practice.

How Many Japanese Bridge Paintings Did Monet Create?

In 1899, Claude Monet painted twelve canvases centered on the Japanese bridge in his Giverny garden. As with many of his major projects, he revisited the motif under varying light, seasonal conditions, and times of day, exploring subtle atmospheric shifts rather than altering subject matter.

This disciplined serial approach follows Monet’s earlier landmark series, including Meules (Haystacks), the Rouen Cathedral series, and his London views of Charing Cross Bridge.

Across these series, Monet transformed repeated subjects into studies of perception, time, and light, a defining innovation that positioned him at the forefront of late Impressionism and modern painting.

How Much Is Water Lilies and Japanese Bridge Worth?

Although Water Lilies and Japanese Bridge (1899) has never appeared at auction and remains in a permanent museum collection, Monet’s late Water Lilies paintings rank among the most valuable Impressionist works ever sold.

In 2019, Meules (Haystacks) (1890) sold for $110.7 million at Sotheby’s, setting a then-record for an Impressionist painting at auction.

Based on established auction precedents for comparable late works, paintings from this phase of Monet’s career are consistently valued in the nine-figure range. As a result, this 1899 canvas would be considered among the most financially significant Impressionist paintings if it were ever to enter the market.

Where Is Water Lilies and Japanese Bridge Located Today?

The painting is permanently housed at the National Gallery of Art in Washington, D.C.
Monet’s monumental late Water Lilies cycle, known as Les Nymphéas, is permanently installed in two purpose-built oval galleries at the Musée de l’Orangerie, underscoring the series’ central place in modern art history.

Why Are Monet’s Water Lilies So Famous?

Monet’s Water Lilies paintings are celebrated because they:

• Mark a decisive transition toward modern abstraction
• Blur the boundary between subject and reflection
• Integrate Western Impressionism with Japanese compositional principles
• Anticipate immersive painting environments later central to 20th-century modernism

The late Water Lilies panels profoundly influenced 20th-century modernism and later Abstract Expressionist artists.

Museum-Quality Oil Painting Reproduction of Water Lilies and Japanese Bridge

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We reference high-resolution museum reference source materials and scholarly catalogues raisonnés to ensure historical accuracy, color fidelity, and compositional precision before a single brushstroke is applied.