Three Poplars, Autumn Effect

Trois Peupliers, effet d'automne (Three Poplars, Autumn Effect) is a painting from Claude Monet's series of poplars on the river Epte near Giverny, made in 1891 and catalogued by Wildenstein as no. 1306. It is signed and dated Claude Monet 91 at the lower left. The canvas is in a private collection, and its dimensions and current owner are not published in the sources we could check.

What you're looking at

The composition is one of the most recognizable in the series. Three tall poplars stand in the foreground, their trunks running from the riverbank to the top edge of the canvas and beyond. Two are at the left, close together; the third stands right of center. Their trunks are painted in hot orange, coral and rust, lit by the sun, and only small tufts of leaves cling to them, in blue, green and yellow.

Behind, a row of shorter, younger poplars follows the bank in a gentle curve from left to right, their crowns a mass of yellow-green, lime and pale gold, with blue shadows underneath. Their thin trunks show as pale verticals. The bank is a broad strip of yellow-green and orange grass. The sky is a deep, slightly hazy blue with lilac clouds, filling more than half the canvas.

At the bottom, the Epte reflects everything: the orange trunks as long wavering columns, the yellow crowns as blurred patches, the blue sky as violet and lilac water. The colors are brighter and sunnier than the title suggests. The trees are only just turning, and the effect is of a clear early-autumn afternoon.

The Poplars series

In 1891 Monet painted a line of poplars on the Epte near the village of Limetz from his flat-bottomed boat. When the commune auctioned the trees for timber, he paid the buyer to let them stand until he had finished. The resulting canvases fall into groups, and one of the clearest is the "three trees" group, with three trunks in front of a curving row, to which this canvas, the Tokyo Three Poplars, Summer and Philadelphia's Poplars, Three Pink Trees, Autumn belong.

How it was painted

Monet paints the trunks in long, thick vertical strokes, the foliage in short, separate dabs, and the water in horizontal touches broken by the reflected verticals. The palette is built on complementaries: orange trunks against blue sky, yellow leaves against violet water. The tall format matches the trees.

How this version differs

Within the three-trees group, this canvas shows the moment between summer and full autumn. Tokyo's version is green and summery; Philadelphia's is pink and coral under a pale sky; Poplars (Autumn) is gold and orange against a cream-white sky. Here, the sky is still a strong blue and the foliage is yellow-green rather than red. Compare also the wind-blown Wind Effect, Series of The Poplars at the Orsay, with the same three-trunk structure in a cooler key. See the whole series in the Poplars series and the countryside in Monet's Giverny.

Where to see it

The painting is privately owned and not on public view. Versions of the same composition can be seen at the National Museum of Western Art in Tokyo and the Philadelphia Museum of Art. For public collections of Monet's work, see where to see Monet's paintings.