Spring Flowers (1864): Art, History and Details

Spring Flowers (1864) is in the Cleveland Museum of Art collection. The museum's creator attribution is Claude Monet (French, 1840–1926).

The work and its context

The museum's open-access catalogue describes the work:

This early work reveals Claude Monet's fascination with capturing the transitory effects that became the primary focus of his later innovations. Painted with almost scientific accuracy, this still life has a freshness and immediacy derived partly from its composition. Isolated against a dark background, the fully mature peonies, potted hydrangeas, and basketed lilacs spill downward and outward from the geraniums at the rear. At the same time, Monet's energetic brushwork conveys the sparkling play of light on leaves and petals.

Object facts

• Title: Spring Flowers
• Date: 1864
• Creator attribution: Claude Monet (French, 1840–1926)
• Culture: France, 19th century
• Type: Painting
• Technique: oil on canvas
• Dimensions: Framed: 144.5 x 117.2 x 12.1 cm (56 7/8 x 46 1/8 x 4 3/4 in.); Unframed: 116.8 x 90.5 cm (46 x 35 5/8 in.)
• Collection: Mod Euro - Painting 1800-1960
• Department: Modern European Painting and Sculpture
• Accession number: 1953.155

A detail from the museum

Monet is quoted as saying, "I perhaps owe having become a painter to flowers." He painted this work in 1864, the first productive year of his career.

Collection credit

Gift of the Hanna Fund

Further reading listed by the museum

• Dumas, Ann, William H. Robinson, Clare A. P. Willsdon, Monty Don, James Priest, Heather Lemonedes, and Lucy I. Zimmerman. Painting the Modern Garden: Monet to Matisse. 2015. catalogue no. 3
• Bazille, Frédéric, Michel Hilaire, and Paul Perrin. Frédéric Bazille (1841-1870) and the Birth of Impressionism. 2016. catalogue no. 52
• Venturi, Lionello, and Paul Durand-Ruel. Les archives de l'impressionnisme. Lettres de Renoir, Monet, Pissaro, Sisley et autres. Mémoires de Paul Durand-Ruel. Documents. Paris, France: Durand-Ruel, 1939.

View the collection record

See the museum's photographs and full catalogue entry. Catalogue text is reproduced from the Cleveland Museum of Art's open-access data, with HTML formatting removed. This object and its supplied image are designated CC0.