In 1893, Monet was finally granted permission by the local authorities to have a pond dug at the bottom of his property in Giverny. As soon as the first plantations had begun to grow, he set up his easel in front of this new “water garden,” as he called it. In the first paintings we see only the water, the aquatic plants, and the reflected sky: there is no horizon, and the different levels merge and jostle on the picture plane. The shifting liquid surface is enlivened by the water lilies, whose large leaves float on its surface. Whether showing open corollas or furled buds, Monet’s representation here is highly naturalistic, unlike his later renderings of the theme. This work from 1897 was one of the first evocations of this site that would inspire so many of his late paintings.