Jean Monet on His Hobby Horse, 1872
Claude Monet

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.