Claude Monet, Water Lilies, 1919. Image © The Metropolitan Museum of Art

Claude Monet, Water Lilies, 1919. Image © The Metropolitan Museum of Art

After the coldest recorded February in New York City since 1934, spring has finally sprung, and we could not be more relieved.

Celebrate the return of the sun with this slideshow full of color and flowers from civilizations as varied as the Dutch Golden Age to 19th-century Japan to our current era, from collections including the Museum of Fine Arts, Boston, the National Gallery, London, the Metropolitan Museum of Art, the Museum of Modern Art, Réunion des Musées Nationaux, Erich Lessing Culture and Fine Arts Archives, Scala Archives, the Museum of Fine Arts, Houston, and the Brooklyn Museum Costumes collection at the Metropolitan Museum of Art.

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