Tulip Fields near The Hague

Claude Monet (1840 - 1926), 1886

oil on canvas, 66 cm x 81.5 cm
Credits: Van Gogh Museum, Amsterdam (State of the Netherlands)

Claude Monet was enormously impressed by the brightly coloured bulb fields of Holland. In the early spring of 1886, he wrote to a friend that the sight was ‘impossible to convey with our poor colours’. Monet had been to the Netherlands before, but was painting the sea of flowers for the first time.

Back in Paris, he sold the painting via art dealers Boussod, Valadon & Cie, where Theo van Gogh worked. It’s quite possible that his brother Vincent saw it there. Vincent gradually came to admire Monet’s swift brushstrokes and bright colours.

Object number

s0530N2012

Credits

Van Gogh Museum, Amsterdam (State of the Netherlands)

Dimensions

66 cm x 81.5 cm, 85 cm x 101 cm