Musee Marmottan Monet

The Marmottan holds around three hundred Monets, the largest collection of his work in the world, most of it given by his son Michel in 1966, and among them is Impression, Sunrise, the 1872 harbour view from Le Havre whose title a hostile critic used to coin the word Impressionism for the whole movement. That painting was stolen in an armed robbery in 1985 and recovered in Corsica five years later. The museum also holds Berthe Morisot's estate, the largest collection of her work, along with Renoir, Degas, Gauguin and a collection of medieval illuminated manuscripts, in a former hunting lodge near the Bois de Boulogne.

History

The building, once a hunting lodge of the Duke of Valmy on the edge of the Bois de Boulogne, was bought in 1882 by Jules Marmottan, whose son Paul, a lover of the Napoleonic era, enlarged the family collection and bequeathed house and collection to the Académie des Beaux-Arts, which opened the Musée Marmottan in 1934. Its fame came with the gift in 1966 by Michel Monet, the painter's second son and only heir, of his father's works. On 27 October 1985 five masked gunmen stole nine paintings in broad daylight, among them Impression, Sunrise, the painting that gave Impressionism its name, and they were recovered in a villa in Corsica in December 1990 (Wikipedia, Musée Marmottan Monet).

The main sights

• Impression, Sunrise - the painting that named the movement.
• The late Monets - water lilies and Giverny works from his final years.
• The Morisot collection - the largest holding of Berthe Morisot anywhere.
• The illuminated manuscripts - a medieval collection in the lower galleries.

When to go

Year-round; the museum closes on Mondays. It is far quieter than the Orsay or Orangerie, which is much of its appeal. The 16th arrondissement location keeps casual traffic down.

What to expect

It is out of the central museum cluster and takes a metro trip. The building is a converted house, so galleries are small. Impression, Sunrise occasionally travels on loan.

Nearby

The Bois de Boulogne lies west; Trocadero is northeast.

Key facts