Monet spent the summer of 1867 in Sainte-Adresse, a small town on the Channel coast of Normandy just north of Le Havre. Among the works painted that summer were "The Beach at Sainte-Adresse" (MMA, 51.30.4) and "Garden at Sainte-Adresse." On June 25 he reported to his fellow painter and friend Frédéric Bazille that all was well: "I have been here for fifteen days, happy and as well as can be expected. Everyone is charming and admires every stroke of my brush." Undoubtedly his admirers included the figures depicted here: the artist's cousin, Jeanne-Marguerite Lecadre, standing beside an unidentified gentleman in the middle ground; Monet's aunt, Madame Lecadre; and his father, Adolphe, seated in the foreground.

The artist's elevated vantage point and the relatively even sizes of the horizontal areas comprising the composition emphasize the two-dimensionality of the painting. The three horizontal zones of the composition seem to rise parallel to the picture plane instead of receding into clearly defined space. The flags, especially the tricolor on the right, may be a witty analogy to the composition. The subtle tension resulting from the combination of illusionism and the two-dimensionality of the surface remained an important characteristic of Monet's style.

In 1920 Monet himself recalled the avant-garde character of "Garden at Sainte-Adresse," as the art dealer René Gimpel recorded in his diary after visiting the artist in Giverny: "Monet showed us a photograph of one of his canvases, which represents his father looking at the sea . . . he pointed out to us that on each side of the composition there is a pole with a flag and that, at that time, this composition was considered very daring."