Claude Monet: Le Dejeuner sur l’Herbe (The Picnic) The idea for this famous work was conceived during one of the artist’s painting trips to Fontainebleau Forest. Monet planned to paint a large canvas more than six metres wide for display at the 1866 Salon. Dissatisfied with the almost completed work, however, the artist refused to show it to the public and subsequently cut the canvas into three parts (the two surviving fragments are now in the Musee d’Orsay, Paris). At the same time as the large canvas Monet painted a smaller version, which is now in the Pushkin Museum.