La Grenouillère is a painting by the impressionist painter, Claude Monet. Monet wrote on September 25, 1869, "I do have a dream, a painting , the baths of La Grenouillère, for which I have made some bad sketches , but it is only a dream. Pierre-Auguste Renoir, who has just spent two months here, also wants to do this painting." Monet and Renoir, both desperately poor, were quite close at the time. The painting here and one in the London National Gallery are probably the sketches mentioned by Monet in his letter. A bigger size painting, now lost but formerly in the Arnhold... collection in Berlin, may well have been the "tableau" that he dreamed of. The broad, constructive brushstrokes here are clearly those of a sketch. For his exhibition pictures Monet usually sought a more delicate and carefully calibrated surface at this time. An almost identical composition of the same subject by Renoir is in the Nationalmuseum, Stockholm. The two friends were undoubtedly working side by side.
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| Artist: | Claude Monet |
| Artform: | Painting |
| Date completed: | 1869 |
| Height: | 2' 5" |
| Width: | 3' 3" |