From the Japanese bridge in his water garden, Monet obtained a high viewpoint of the water and a correspondingly steep picture plane, uninterrupted by the shoreline. The reflective surface of a pond with its floating vegetation seems transformed into limitless space. In 1908 he wrote: 'These landscapes of water and reflection have become an obsession...yet I want to succeed in rendering what I perceive'. This is one of three Monet paintings of waterlilies (nymphas) purchased by Gwendoline Davies at Paris in 1913.