They are surrounded by rowboats for rent in the foreground, shirtless swimmers at left, and visitors to the floating restaurant at right. The figures on the tiny round island at the center of the canvas, known as “ Le Camembert,” appear in all manner of dress, from the long black bathing costumes in fashion in the 1860s on the women at left to the higher-class top-hatted men in white pants and women in crinolined long skirts at right. The Met’s painting is equally an essay in reflections of sunlight on water and a close study of human interactions and everyday poses that borrows from the painter’s early work experiences as a caricaturist in quickly capturing the essence of each figure’s appearance at La Grenouillère. For Monet more than for Renoir, though, it was also an opportunity to explore his much beloved atmospheric water effects. Complete with a restaurant that floated in part over the water, La Grenouillère was perfect for watching people unawares in relaxed, everyday poses.

Monet and his young family had just moved to Saint-Michel, a hamlet outside Bougival, in late spring of 1869 and would stay there until the following summer. 1 above), one of the new weekend leisure spots for boating and swimming of the 1860s located on the Seine at Croissy near Bougival, the western suburb of Paris.

They set their easels up side by side at La Grenouillère (The Frog Pool) (see fig. The Painting: In the summer of 1869, Claude Monet was working very closely with his friend Auguste Renoir.

Renoir by Karin Sagner-Düchting