Japanese Footbridge

Monet had to ask permission for this. In March 1893 he applied to the prefect of the Eure for leave to divert part of the Ru, a branch of the river Epte, into the boggy plot he had just bought across the railway line at Giverny. His neighbours, mostly farmers, objected that the imported water plants he meant to grow would spoil the stream their cattle drank from. He appealed, arguing that the garden was for the pleasure of the eye and for motifs to paint, and the prefect granted it that July. Six years later he set up at one end of the finished pond and painted the same view 12 times in a single season. The arched trellis of wisteria people picture over this bridge was not there yet. In 1899 it is plain painted wood.