The boat motif first appeared in Monet’s sketchbooks in 1887. At this time he was spending long moments along the banks of the Epte, painting his daughtersin- law Suzanne and Blanche Hoschedé enjoying the pleasures of the countryside, which included boating. The result was a series of works that demonstrate the artist’s concern with reflections and the techniques for rendering them on canvas. This painting is surprising both in its composition and its dimensions. The Boat prefigures the experiments that Monet began in the 1890s with the Water Lilies. Relegated to the upper right of the canvas, the subject (the boat) is simply a pretext for showing the movement of the grasses underwater, which fill the rest of the composition. In a letter that he wrote to Geffroy on June 22, 1890 (Wildenstein, 1979b, no 1060), Monet describes his work as follows: “I have taken up things impossible to do: water with grass that undulates in the depths, it is admirable to see, but it is enough to drive one mad to wish to do it. I always attack things like that.”