Garden of the Princess, Louvre

In the spring of 1867 Monet got permission to do something unusual at the Louvre. Rather than copy the old masters inside, as young painters were expected to, he set up at an upper-floor window and turned to face the city. Paris below him was a building site. Baron Haussmann was still cutting his wide boulevards through the medieval streets, and Monet was watching a city remake itself in real time. This is one of three views he painted from that balcony. Below lies the trim garden once reserved for royalty, then the traffic along the quay, and across the Seine the dome of the Panthéon in the haze. The crowds are just quick flecks of paint, the light and movement mattering to him more than any single face. The picture has hung at the Allen Memorial Art Museum in Ohio since 1948.