Woman with a Parasol - Madame Monet and Her Son

In the pictureThe view looks up from the foot of a low hill. A woman in white stands in the center holding a green parasol and turns her head toward us. A white veil blows across her face, and her skirt billows out to the left. The tip of the parasol nearly touches the top edge of the picture. Beyond the hill at lower left, her young son in a round hat is visible from the waist up. The sky mixes blue and white clouds in rough brushstrokes, and yellow flowers dot the grass below. The signature and date are written in the lower right corner.

BackgroundMonet painted his wife Camille and their son Jean, about seven years old, in 1875 at Argenteuil outside Paris. It was painted quickly outdoors in a single sitting, and in his haste bare canvas was left showing in places in the sky. The following year Monet passed the painting to his patron, the doctor Georges de Bellio. Camille died in 1879, and in 1886 Monet painted two more women with parasols using a different model. The painting entered the National Gallery of Art in Washington in 1983 as a gift of Mr. and Mrs. Paul Mellon.

Puzzle tipThe sky, filling the upper two-thirds, is the largest mass. First fit the green parasol and the woman in white to set up a vertical column in the center. The sky is brighter, with more white cloud, on the left and a deeper blue toward the upper right, so use that difference to tell left from right. In the grass below, green and yellow strokes repeat in similar ways, but the child at lower left and the signature at lower right serve as reference points. 100 pieces is about right.