"I have started on an entire series of landscapes," Monet wrote in August 1919 to the dealers Bernheim-Jeune, ". . . which, I believe, may be of some interest to you. I dare not say that I am pleased with the paintings, but I am working on them passionately: they provide some repose from my Décorations." This was the first news of the eleven canvases that Monet undertook as relief from his relentless effort on the Grande Décorations, ultimately installed at the Orangerie in Paris. Throughout the war, Monet had worked on his vast water lily pictures at Giverny, and during this time he refused to part with any in progress. Given his immense reputation and the prospect of economic renewal after the Armistice, the suggestion that he might sell something was intriguing.

This exceptional painting is one of four signed-and-dated canvases sold in fall 1919 to Bernheim-Jeune. Like all of Monet's work in this period, it shows the sky and adjacent landscape reflected on the surface of the artist's pond at Giverny. The critic Arsène Alexandre considered this canvas the culmination of an earlier picture in the series (private collection): "This painting overwhelms us with its life force, and could well be called 'Maturity.'"