The Petite Creuse River

Museum record 81546: The Petite Creuse River by Claude Monet. A verified entry point for discovery.

What to notice

For The Petite Creuse River (record 81546), start with modern, expressive, atmospheric. Compare the focal subject, edge treatment, and atmosphere before moving on.

Discover

Claude Monet began this canvas—one of three of the Petite Creuse—in April 1889 but only returned to it later that spring, by which time the landscape had changed considerably. The oak tree, for example, was sprouting leaves, obscuring the view he had already established. Rather than rework or restart the canvas to depict the current season, Monet hired workers to defoliate the tree so that he could re-create its earlier appearance. Monet spent three months in the remote Creuse valley in central France be…