Frau mit Sonnenschirm, nach rechts gewandt

In 1875 Monet had painted his first wife Camille on a rise, parasol up, turning to look back. She died four years later, still young. Then in 1886, a decade on, he made this pair of near life-size figures on a windy slope again, but the woman now is Suzanne Hoschede, his second wife's daughter, and Monet left her face a blank. He said he wanted no particular person here at all. The wind pressing her dress and the ribbon streaming from her hat matter more than who she is, so she reads almost as weather, like the grass bending below her. This is one half of a pair. Its twin turns the other way, and both hang in the Musee d'Orsay.