Monet liked water lillies and painted hundreds of them. Numiartis picks a fine one for their latest puzzle coin

Undoubtedly one of the world’s great painters, Oscar-Claude Monet was the French painter that helped found, and gave the name to, the impressionist art movement. Impressionism has, as its central philosophy, the idea that art should take human perception, especially of nature, as a defining quality. They’re almost like snapshots, taking into account the interplay of light on the subject, and taking less formal perspectives.

One of Monet’s great passions was his garden in Giverny, Northern France, which had a huge garden with a water-lily pond. As a result, he took water lilies as a subject, producing over 250 paintings of them in the last 30 years of his life. They sit in many museums around the world, occasionally coming up for auction as well, where they attract huge attention, and massive sale prices, up to a staggering $54m.

This is the third coin in the Numiartis series ‘So Puzzle Art’, and follows designs from Gustav Klimt, and John Maler Collier OBE. The subject is Monet’s Nymphéas W1852, which currently resides in the Musée Marmottan-Monet. A classic Monet work, it makes a fine subject for their latest numismatic, full of colour and encapsulating Impressionism well. As before, this is a three-ounce 0.999 silver coin that’s coloured on the reverse face except where a small portion of the jigsaw is missing. That portion resides on the obverse, where it is the only part coloured, with the rest antiqued. The obverse is filled with a mirrored and incused copy of the artwork.

These are expansive coins, reaching out to a healthy 65 mm in diameter, and do away with the rim as well. What inscriptions there are on the reverse face are kept to the unfinished portion of the jigsaw – a neat touch, with the specific coin title set on the obverse. All told, a fine entrant into the series. It comes boxed with a Certificate of Authenticity, and the mintage is capped at just 340 pieces. It should be available shortly from the distributor, Intercoins Berlin, and others, no doubt.