IT IS the centrepiece of a big new exhibition at the Royal Academy of Arts (RA), but few visitors will realise the mystery at the heart of Claude Monet’s Agapanthus triptych: it does not feature the flower after which it is named.
The curators of Painting the Modern Garden, which begins on Saturday, spent two years negotiating the loan of the three large panels from galleries in Cleveland, St Louis and Kansas City.
It is the first time they have been reunited in Europe since Monet painted them almost a century ago.
Agapanthus — better known in Britain as the African lily — originally featured on the Cleveland panel but appears to have been painted over by the artist. The original name has, however, remained.