When Monet painted this picture of his eldest son in the summer of 1872, the artist and his family had recently returned to France from their self-imposed exile during the Franco-Prussian War. Thanks to the efforts of the dealer Durand-Ruel, the artist’s finances had begun to improve. Consequently, the once impoverished Monets were able to install themselves in a rented house in Argenteuil, an agreeable suburb northwest of Paris. For this portrait, Monet posed his five-year-old son in the garden of their new home. He was sure to display Jean’s fancy clothes and expensive mechanical horse, but his primary aim was to capture a likeness of the child. Monet never exhibited this picture and kept it until the end of his life.

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