O Rio della Salute, 1908

Monet arrived in Venice in October 1908 with his wife Alice for what was meant to be a short visit, and stayed ten weeks. He was 68, and this turned out to be the last series he painted away from his garden at Giverny. He came home with 37 canvases. Three of them show this stretch of water, the Rio della Salute, named after the domed church of Santa Maria della Salute standing near its mouth. The viewpoint can only be reached from the canal, so Monet had a gondolier row him out to the same spot again and again, working at the same hour each day to keep the light steady. He called pictures like this paysages d'eau, water landscapes.