This picture was painted on the estate of Monet?s aunt, Madame Lecadre, in Sainte-Adresse, near Le Havre. Today the estate is inside the city?s borders. The location is confirmed by the label on the back of the painting from the Durand-Ruel Gallery, where S. Shebukin purchased it, and by the grandson of Lady (Jeanne-Marguerite) Lecadre, who was married to Monet's cousin.

It is known that at his father?s request, Monet parted with Camille, his future wife, and spent the summer of 1867 in isolation at Sainte-Adresse. Woman in a Garden was probably created at that very period3ƒ4very likely at the same time as the Louvre?s Garden in Bloom, which depicts another part of the same garden, adjacent to the house. Although both canvases are not dated, the Louvre considers Garden in Bloom to have been painted in 1866. Daniel Wildenstein?s catalogue also assigns this date to both paintings.

However, Wildenstein published Monet's letter of June 25, 1867, to Bazille, which refers to the above landscapes: –. . . I've done a lot of pictures, some twenty canvases in all3ƒ4magnificent sea views and figures, and gardens, and what not.” Terrace at Sainte-Adresse (Metropolitan Museum of Art, New York), which was dated 1867 by Monet, became the central work of thi group.

The methods used by the artist in painting this canvas are close to those used for Woman in a Garden, and the heroine of the Hermitage composition is also shown in the center, X-ray analysis of Woman in a Garden has revealed a male figure on the right that was later painted over. Rewald dates the painting c. 1866.