A woman in a blue dress and straw hat holds a blue parasol as she stands among tall grasses and red poppies in the lower right foreground. The left half of the painting is thick with red poppies, their color scattered across the sloping meadow, while the right side is dominated by paler greens and blues. In the middle distance, another woman and child walk together through the field, echoed in dress and gesture, with the woman also wearing a hat and holding a parasol.

A row of dark trees stretches across the horizon, broken at the center by a broad-leaved tree that rises against the sky and a glimpse of a pale house partly hidden by foliage. Above, a sky filled with white and grey clouds opens onto patches of blue, with sunlight filtering through and illuminating the field below. Rapid, visible brushstrokes create a shimmering effect in the grasses and flowers, while the trees and clouds are rendered with looser, blended marks that suggest movement and changing light.

The composition is structured on a diagonal, with the two pairs of figures marking out an oblique line from the lower right to the upper left, guiding the viewer’s gaze across the landscape. The painting’s surface is textured, with areas of thick paint in the poppies and more transparent washes in the sky and distant trees. The scene is set in the rural area near Argenteuil, where Claude Monet lived when he completed this work in 1873. After its creation, the painting was acquired by the art merchant Paul Durand-Ruel, later owned by Ernest Duez, Jean-Baptiste Faure, and Étienne Moreau-Nélaton, who donated it to the French state in 1906.

The work was successively housed in the Louvre, Musée des Arts Décoratifs, and the Jeu de Paume before its current exhibition at the Musée d'Orsay since 1986. The Poppy Field near Argenteuil brings together several hallmarks of Impressionism, including painting en plein air, light colors, and sketch-like details.