This landscape represents a major thawing of the Seine River in the Vétheuil region, west of Paris, in January 1880. It is part of a series of 18 works produced by the painter on the site, which form his visual response to the brutal event. The glacial beauty of wintry nature, seen at different times of the day and subjected to variations of perspective and light, imposes itself as the central theme of this series, which includes landscapes where the devastation is more evident, as in this case, and works of a more serene atmosphere.

With little colour and only superficial definition of the incipient solidity of the broken ice and the devastated trees, the work results from a systematic observation of elements sketched outdoors, having been the object of subsequent refinement in the studio. By using a broad, intersecting and inventive brushstroke, in this composition Monet mixes fundamental impressionist principles – spontaneity, pure sensation, fleeting effect – with the formal thoroughness of a complex, ordered spatial structure.