Claude Monet, Study of a Figure Outdoors: Woman with a Parasol, Facing Left
Claude Monet, Essai de figure en plein air : femme à l'ombrelle tournée vers la gauche, détail, 1886, huile sur toile, 131 x 88 cm, Paris, musée d'Orsay. Source : RMN-Grand Palais (musée d'Orsay) / Stéphane Maréchalle.
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In the early days of the Symbolist movement, Claude Monet began producing his Studies of Figures Outdoors, in which he portrays his daughter-in-law, Suzanne Hoschedé, through a series of long posing sessions 01 Claude Monet, quoted by Lilla Cabot Perry in “Reminiscences of Claude Monet from 1889 to 1919,” The American Magazine of Art, March 1927. .
Claude Monet, Essai de figure en plein air : femme à l'ombrelle tournée vers la gauche, 1886, huile sur toile, 131 x 88 cm, Paris, musée d'Orsay. Source : RMN-Grand Palais (musée d'Orsay) / Stéphane Maréchalle.
This return to the human figure – abandoned by the artist in 1879 following the death of his first wife, Camille – presented an opportunity to return to his previous work.
In this oil on canvas piece from 1886, the artist revisits a painting he completed ten years earlier, Woman with a Parasol (1875), adopting the same subject, low angle composition and contre-jour lighting.
Beyond the apparent lightness of this promenade scene, in keeping with the Sunday pastimes of the 19th-century middle class, these two interconnected works evoke, as astutely observed by Ségolène Le Men, “the effect of recurring characters 02 Ségolène Le Men, Monet, Paris, Citadelles & Mazenod, 2010, p. 291. , where the protagonists of a new generation replace those of the previous.” Monet appears to have projected the image of his first wife, Camille, onto this new model, depicting her with similar features and the same melancholy pose. This becomes apparent when we compare his Portrait of Suzanne Hoschedé with Sunflowers (1890) with Camille Holding a Posy of Violets (1877).
Olivier Schuwer, « Claude Monet, Study of a Figure Outdoors: Woman with a Parasol, Facing Left », Impressionnisme.s [label_online], label_online_since 23 Dec 2025 , label_consulted_on 25 Jan 2026. URL: https://impressionnisme.preprod.sweetpunk.io/en/oeuvre/monet_essai_figure_pleinair/
Footnotes
Claude Monet, quoted by Lilla Cabot Perry in “Reminiscences of Claude Monet from 1889 to 1919,” The American Magazine of Art, March 1927.
Ségolène Le Men, Monet, Paris, Citadelles & Mazenod, 2010, p. 291.
Claude Monet, Portrait of Suzanne Hoschedé with Sunflowers, 1890, oil on canvas, 162 x 107 cm, private collection (W. 1261); Camille Holding a Posy of Violets, 1877, oil on canvas, 116 x 88 cm, private collection (W. 436)
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