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Stack of Wheat (Snow Effect, Overcast Day)

Claude Monet (French, 1840–1926)

1890–91

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$24

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Materials & printing

Archival matte paper, 189 g/m² (10.3 mil), sourced from Japan, printed with multicolor water-based inkjet so every brushstroke stays crisp. Framed prints arrive ready to hang in a .75″ ayous-wood frame with an acrylite front. Sized to standard frames by cropping, never stretching — at most about 3% comes off one edge, which isn’t noticeable on most pieces, and we only offer a size when it stays that small.

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Made to order and delivered in 5–8 business days (2–4 to print, 3–4 in transit). US shipping only for now. Because each print is made for your order, all sales are final — but if it arrives damaged or defective, send us a photo within 14 days and we’ll replace it free. Full policy.

Why is it this affordable?

A thin, flat margin on every piece — just enough to keep the store running. Most of what you pay is the print itself. We only sell sizes that reproduce at full quality, and we don’t mark up the large sizes the way most shops do.

About this work

The monumental stacks that Claude Monet depicted in his series Stacks of Wheat rose fifteen to twenty feet and stood just outside the artist’s farmhouse at Giverny. Through 1890 and 1891, he worked on this series both in the field, painting simultaneously at several easels, and in the studio, refining pictorial harmonies. In May 1891, Monet hung fifteen of these canvases next to each other in one small room in the Galerie Durand-Ruel in Paris. An unprecedented critical and financial success, the exhibition marked a breakthrough in Monet’s career, as well as in the history of French art. In this view, and in nearly all of the autumn views in the series, the conical tops of the stacks break the horizon and push into the sky. But in most of the winter views, which constitute the core of the series, the stacks seem wrapped by bands of hill and field, as if bedded down for the season. For Monet, the stack was a resonant symbol of sustenance and survival. He followed this group with further series depicting poplars, the facade of Rouen Cathedral, and, later, his own garden at Giverny. The Art Institute has the largest group of Monet’s Stacks of Wheat in the world.

Medium
Oil on canvas
Original size
66 × 93 cm (26 × 36 5/8 in.)
Museum
Art Institute of Chicago · 1933.1155 ↗
Museum record · 1 owner · 14 exhibitions

Provenance

  • The artist (d. 1926); sold to Durand-Ruel, Paris, May 9, 1891, for 2,500 francs; sold to Durand-Ruel, New York, Oct. 25 or Nov. 16, 1892; sold to Martin A. Ryerson, Chicago, Mar. 31, 1893, for $1,500; bequeathed to the Art Institute of Chicago, 1933.

Exhibitions

  • Paris, Galeries Durand-Ruel, Exposition d’oeuvres récentes de Claude Monet, May 1891, as Meule.
  • (Effet de neige; temps couvert), Appartient à M. Durand-Ruel.
  • Minneapolis Institute of Arts, Inaugural Exhibition, Jan. 7–Feb. 7, 1915, as The Haystack, Lent by Martin A. Ryerson, Chicago, Ill.
  • Art Institute of Chicago, “A Century of Progress”: Loan Exhibition of Paintings and Sculpture for 1934, June 1–Oct. 31, 1934.
  • Decatur Art Center, Masterpieces of European and American Art Lent by the Art Institute of Chicago, Mar. 4–25, 1945; Springfield Art Association, Apr. 1945, no, Remington Rand, window display, Apr. 14–30, 1952, no cat. University of Chicago, Lexington Hall, Nov. 17–Dec. 17, 1952, no cat. Park Forest Art Center, Mar. 25–Apr. 22, 1956, no cat. Art Institute of Chicago, The Paintings of Claude Monet, Apr. 1–June 15, 1957, no cat. no. Art Institute of Chicago, Paintings by Monet, Mar. 15–May 11, 1975.
  • Los Angeles County Museum of Art, A Day in the Country: Impressionism and the French Landscape, June 28–Sept. 16, 1984; Art Institute of Chicago, Oct. 23, 1984–Jan. 6, 1985; Paris, Galeries Nationales d’Exposition, Grand Palais, as L’impressionnisme et le paysage français, Feb. 4–Apr. 22, 1985.
  • Leningrad, Hermitage Museum, Ot Delakrua do Matissa: shedevry frantsuzskoĭ zhivopici XIX-nachala XX veka, iz Muieia Metropoliten v Niu-Ĭorke i Khudozhestvennogo Instituta v Chikago, March 15-May 19, 1988; Moscow, Pushkin Museum, June 10-July 30, 1988.
  • Boston, Museum of Fine Arts, Monet in the ’90s: The Series Paintings, February 7–April 29, 1990; Art Institute of Chicago, May 19–August 12, 1990; London, Royal Academy of Arts, September 7–December 9, 1990.
  • Art Institute of Chicago, Claude Monet, 1840–1926, July 22–Nov. 26, 1995.
  • Washington, D.C., Phillips Collection, Impressionists in Winter: Effets de neige, Sept. 19, 1998–Jan. 3, 1999; San Francisco, Fine Arts Museums of San Francisco at the Center for the Arts at Yerba Buena Gardens, Jan. 30–May 2, 1999 (Washington only).
  • Hamburg, Hamburger Kunsthalle, Monets Vermächtnis: Serie—Ordnung und Obsession, Sept. 28, 2001–Jan. 6, 2002, no cat. no..
  • Fort Worth, Tex., Kimbell Museum of Art, The Impressionists: Master Paintings from the Art Institute of Chicago, June 29–Nov. 2, 2008.
  • Albright-Knox Art Gallery, Buffalo, New York, Monet and the Impressionist Revolution, 1860-1910, Nov. 14, 2015-Mar 20, 2016.
  • Art Institute of Chicago, Monet and Chicago, September 5, 2020-June 14, 2021.
More prints by Claude Monet →Impressionism prints →French prints →Architecture prints →Sky & Clouds prints →

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