Between summer 1890 and winter 1891, Monet executed some thirty paintings of the haystacks in a field near his house at Giverny. In the midst of this effort, he wrote to the critic Gustave Geoffroy: "I am working very hard, struggling with a series if different effects (haystacks), but at this season the sun sets so fast I cannot follow it ... the more I continue, the more I see that a great deal of work is necessary in order to succeed in rendering what I seek; 'instantaneity,' especially the 'enveloppe,' the same light spreading everywhere." Although Monet had painted multiple versions of a single subject earlier, the Haystacks were the first group that he exhibited as a series; in 1891, fifteen were shown at Durand-Ruel in Paris.

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