積み藁、雪解け、日没

In November 1890 Monet finally bought the house at Giverny he had been renting for seven years, and that winter he was out in the field beside it painting his neighbour's stacks of wheat. They were substantial things, standing roughly five metres high, built to keep the grain dry until it could be threshed. He worked several canvases at once, moving from easel to easel as the light shifted, then tuned them against each other in the studio. This one takes a thaw at sunset, and he signed and dated it 1891. That May he hung 15 of the stacks together in one small room at Durand-Ruel's gallery in Paris, and they sold quickly, at prices his work had not reached before.