[1] The painting was acquired by the Metropolitan Museum of Art after an auction sale at Christie's in December 1967, under the French title La terrasse à Sainte-Adresse.

[1] It was there, in a garden with a view of Honfleur on the horizon, that he painted this picture,[1] which combines smooth, traditionally rendered areas with sparkling passages of rapid, separate brushwork, and spots of pure colour.

Monet's relations with his father were tense that summer, owing to family disapproval of the young artist's liaison with his companion, Camille Doncieux, his wife-to-be.

The print by the Japanese artist Hokusai that may have inspired this picture, Turban-shell Hall of the Five-Hundred-Rakan Temple (1830),[3] remains today at Monet's house-museum at Giverny.

The subtle tension resulting from the combination of illusionism and the two-dimensionality of the surface remained an important characteristic of Monet's style.