As a French journalist opined in the 1860s, "Everyone in the middle class wants to have his little house with trees, roses, dahlias, his big or little garden, his rural argentea mediocritas." Previously the middle class had consisted of urban apartment dwellers and rural gentry, but the development of railroads under Louis-Philippe and their expansion under Napoléon III made possible a hitherto unknown suburban mode. This new phenomenon is perfectly illustrated by the life and work of Monet, who adopted bourgeois manners and aspirations long before he could afford them.

Accordingly, Monet made his life in Argenteuil, an agreeable suburb of Paris, the stuff of his art. In this famous portrait of his five-year-old son, Jean (1867–1913), he was sure to display the boy's expensive tricycle and chic clothing, but his primary aim was to capture a likeness. He painted him with the deep-set—almost world-weary—eyes that his mother, Camille, also possessed. Here, Monet did not lavish his usual attention on brushwork, allowing the white canvas primer to show in the highlights, and he used a restrained and sophisticated harmony of tan, green, and red. This may be Monet's most ingratiating picture, but it is no less intelligent for all that.